The Case of the Dead Detective
by Westron Wynde
Summary: A troubling case reunites Holmes and Watson under unusual circumstances in 1931 for what could be their last great adventure together. A post-retirement story with a supernatural difference!
1. Chapter One

___**The singular and most talented Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson et al are the creations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is a work of fan fiction, by a fan, for the enjoyment of other fans and no harm is meant or intended by its creation.**_

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_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter One**

When one reaches a certain age, there are particular subjects that are perhaps safer to avoid as topics of conversation or literary fascination. A firm belief in fantastical beasts, for example, especially that alleged denizen of Loch Ness, is something I believe best left to the young. In the old, it is seen as mere insanity and evidence of a wandering of the mind that inevitably terminates in confinement to an institution.

Therefore, it is with a certain trepidation that I take up my pen to write in my closing years of my last contact with my celebrated friend and the mystery that brought us back together. I use the latter term in its loosest possible meaning, for although I have no reservation in asserting that contact did take place, it was not in the conventional sense.

No doubt the reader will consider this tale somewhat fanciful, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree. If I were to read it myself, I would decry the author as delusional and cast doubts as to the state of his wits. However, I can relate only the truth of what happened, as improbable as it might seem, and hope for a kindly judgement.

Thus it was that on a glorious spring morning in 1931 I found myself delving into my journals and reading over notes of cases past and clients long forgotten. My old friend was very much on my mind of late, a keenness that had been sharpened by the approach of the anniversary of his death.

That day, nearly a year ago, had been a Saturday full of floating cherry blossom and the burgeoning colours of life renewed. We had been in the garden, with the grandchildren gambolling happily with their new puppy, when a telegram had been delivered for me. The message was short and succinct, a few choice words to describe the saddest of events, that Mr Sherlock Holmes was dead.

So great a passing should have been accompanied by the tolling of bells or the firing of cannons. Instead, it was to the sound of bird song and the laughter of the young that I learnt the news of my friend's demise.

The sense of déjà vu was palpable. I had attended a memorial service for him many years before when the machinations of Moriarty and his accomplices had forced him into hiding. The difference was that now the coffin was not empty. Nor were there the crowds that had attended the earlier events. According to his wishes, few were to know his passing and even fewer of the location of his grave. If, as he was wont to claim, his absence from London was to be avoided lest it over-excite the criminal classes, then the news of his death, even retired as he was, would surely send them into a frenzy. So did my dear friend depart this world with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of grief to that select few whom he had counted amongst his acquaintances.

My initial sense of loss was blunted to some extent, either by age or weary experience. I had mourned Holmes once before, and that knowledge and the extraordinary nature of his reappearance had allowed me to convince myself that this was yet another of his elaborate charades, and that any moment he would appear and reassure me that all was well. My foolish certainty persisted until that moment when I found myself in the cool interior of a quiet country church, listening to the words intoned by the vicar and realising that this time our separation was final.

Since then my pen had lain idle, for I did not care to revisit the ghosts of happier times. Any pleasure I derived from my accounts of our adventures seemed trite now I knew I would receive no more terse little messages, telling me which case I should recount next for the public's delectation or criticising my florid treatment of some minor matter upon which had turned the crux of the affair.

Then, one day, nearly a year later, I had awoken and found that I bore the mantle of sadness no longer. I wanted to remember with fondness and joy, not to mourn that our time together was over, but to celebrate all that we had shared. The change in me was welcomed by my family, and I saw happiness in their eyes when I announced at breakfast that I intended to spend the day writing.

So it was that I sat with my journal for the year 1897 upon my knee and a smile on my face. As interesting as the account was that I was reading, I found my attention pulled to the large tin box that sat forlorn and forgotten in the corner. There it had lain since I had put it there the morning after Holmes's funeral and had not been touched again. He had bequeathed it to me with a note saying that I should do whatever I liked with the contents, since if I was reading his missive it meant that he was past caring.

For a long time, I had chosen to ignore it, although I was always aware of its presence, a Pandora's box of temptation. It brooded there, a squat ugly affair, its contents tormenting me with promises of treasures unknown. The last time I had seen it open, I remembered it being fairly full with bundles of papers tied up with red tape into separate packages. I recalled mention of Holmes's early cases, of references to the Tarleton murders, the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as Ricoletti of the club-foot and his abominable wife. From this unprepossessing crate had sprung too the extraordinary tale of the Musgrave Ritual and the chain of events at the Manor House of Hurlstone that had led to Holmes's discovery of the ancient crown of the kings of England.

As bequests go, this was gift without equal. I cannot recall how many times I had urged Holmes to admit me to its secrets and ever with that small, annoying smile of his had he resisted. Now that box was in my power, I found that I paused at the thought of wrenching its mysteries from its heart. Once that lid was opened, all would be revealed and the last great unknown lost forever.

I bade it do its worst and managed to resist its allure all morning. Every time I glanced up from my papers, my eye immediately fell on it. I looked away but it drew me back time and again until finally I gave up the battle and succumbed. The straps fell away, the lid opened and out wafted the stale odour of tobacco.

Nothing could have evoked Baker Street more keenly in my mind. In an instant, I was whirled back through time and space and I sat once more in my chair by the fire with Holmes opposite me, clad in his mouse-grey dressing gown and a curl of blue smoke spiralling up from his old clay pipe.

The memory was welcome rather than disturbing, and I breathed in the musty smell of days past. Before me lay reams of neat bundles, each labelled with notes in Holmes's handwriting with tantalising suggestions of what lay within. I was as a child in a sweet shop, spoilt for choice, and knowing not which to take first.

I closed my eyes and delved my hand within. What came out was a yellowing sheaf of papers with an enigmatic little note about the Swinson affair. I had never heard Holmes refer to it and my curiosity was inflamed. As I struggled to get to my feet, I was sure that the smell of tobacco was getting stronger, torturing my senses with a pleasure that had for some years been denied to me. In fact, the box seemed to be leeching a miasmic vapour, so that I was sure I could see a blue-grey haze starting to fill the air before me.

I dismissed it as the workings of an over-active imagination and returned, laden down papers, to my desk. Down they went with a thud onto the blotter, levitating minute particles of dust that danced and simmered in the slanting rays of the morning sun. More annoyingly, the uppermost letter slithered from the pile and continued on its merry way down to the floor. I sighed with some impatience and steeled myself for protests from my knees at the prospect of having to bend down to get it.

I stooped, reached out for it, and as I did the letter twitched and darted away from me as though it had taken on a life of its own. I watched in astonishment and a growing sense of horror as slowly it rose from the floor before me, a few tentative inches at first. Then, with its confidence growing, it moved higher and higher and drifted back to my desk, where it floated down to rejoin its companions. I had scarce recovered from this momentous event when another occurred of equal magnitude. That it was preceded by the sound of a well-remembered voice and those familiar tones of rebuke was scarce warning of what was to come.

"My dear Watson," it said, "do you really think you should be doing that at your age?"

I turned in the direction from whence the voice had come, and there, seated in the armchair by the window, was Sherlock Holmes.

Had I been on my feet, I should surely have fallen. As it was, I had to clutch at my desk for support. I stared at him, this unmistakeable figure in his neat black frock coat and immaculate pinstripe trousers calmly sitting in my study and whiling his time away with a quiet smoke. I was bewildered by a thousand questions and gripped by a sense of disbelief, certain that I must surely be in the midst of some terrible dream and that this thing before me was nothing more than a figment of my imagination, conjured up from the depths of my unconsciousness for what purpose I did not know. Either that or I had joined the ranks of the insane.

I shut my eyes, told myself that I was seeing things and reopened them. He was still there, as seemingly tangible and real as he had ever been. It was not Holmes, could not be him. My friend was dead. This was nothing more than a cruel trick, it had to be, and I was determined to put an end to it.

"Who are you?" I demanded, rising with difficulty. "What is the meaning of this… this _intrusion_?"

He appeared unperturbed by my challenge and met my gaze coolly. "Really, my dear fellow, if this is the attitude you take with your guests, it is a wonder that you have any visitors at all."

"I do not know you, sir, and would be obliged if you stated your purpose for being here."

A fleeting smile touched his mouth in a manner that was positively wolfish. "I would have thought that was self-evident," said he decisively, rising from his chair and approaching where I stood. "I must say, Watson, I had anticipated a reaction of sorts, although not this hostility. You are, as you have ever been, a constant source of fascination in that respect. I fear I shall never get your limits—"

"That is enough. I do not know who you are or what you want, but I would ask you to leave now, or else I shall ring the bell and have you removed."

"I believe that you would. If I may be so bold as to mount one substantial objection to that."

"What?"

"You cannot lay hands upon me, any more than I cannot lay hands upon you. Although," he added, "you are welcome to try."

He held out his hand to me. Perhaps it was the sudden chill that spread across my skin or the sheer arrogance of the man, but I did not take it. I cannot explain the reason for my hesitancy, except that I was struck with an overwhelming sense that once I did as he suggested there would be no going back, but from what I could not say. It was only my curiosity that carried the day and caused me to reach out to shake the proffered hand. My fingers passed through his and I was left grasping nothing but air that was as cold as the grave. A nagging thought I had tried to deny thrust itself to the forefront of my mind and to my shame I recoiled from him.

"It's impossible," I insisted despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

"Improbable, perhaps," said the apparition, smiling sadly. "Watson, it's me."

"Holmes? It _can't_ be you."

"You aren't going to faint again, are you?" said he with concern. "You've gone quite pale. Take a seat before you fall down, my dear fellow. You look like you've seen a ghost."

A nervous laugh escaped me as I slid into my chair. "Yes, I believe I have. Holmes, is that really you?"

He gave this question serious consideration. "In essence, I must answer in the affirmative. In a very real sense, however, I exist in so much as your interpretation of my material form permits. Your eyes tell you one thing, Watson, while your brain attempts to mount a myriad of objections to that perception, which may or may not be accurate." He sighed somewhat wearily. "Do you have any objections to my sitting down? As an amateur in the field of paranormal manifestation, I find the effort of materialisation rather taxing."

So saying, he perched himself on the edge of my desk. There he sat, his presence defying all logical explanation.

"Are you… are you a ghost?" I asked hesitantly.

"Your question puts me in a most awkward situation, for, as I have told you on numerous occasions that I do not believe in such a phenomenon, I am now in the absurd position of disbelieving in myself. In such a case, I must adhere to my old maxim that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Come, my dear friend, we can reason this out together and make what sense we will of this situation."

I had heard patients tell of hallucinations so vivid and real that they were utterly caught up in the pretence, but never of being ordered by a mere illusion to join it in proving its existence. As unreal as the situation was, a strange sense of obligation compelled me to obey. Holmes had asked me to help him, like so often in the past, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to comply.

"I was told you were dead," I said lamely. "We had a funeral."

"Was it well attended?" he inquired.

"No, just a few people from the village and myself, as you instructed."

"Quite so. Did you tell my bees?"

"Yes, although I felt singularly absurd doing so."

"Your endeavours were not in vain. One should always inform bees of the passing of their keeper. In their own way, they are sensitive creatures, easily disturbed."

"As disturbed as I am to see you now?" I said. "You did really die, didn't you? You haven't done it to me again and faked your own death?"

He looked mildly affronted by my remark. "You make it sound as though I made a habit of it. Once, my dear fellow, and then only out of necessity."

"Once was enough," I muttered. "What about the time you _pretended_ you were dying?"

"The end justified the means."

"And now?"

"Now pretence has become reality. I am as you see me. 'I am thy friend's spirit', if the Bard will forgive the liberty I take with his prose."

" 'Doomed for a certain term to walk the night'?"

"Doomed, no, and as you can see, it is day. 'For a certain term', however, may have some validity, in which case we cannot delay. Now, you will agree that it is impossible for me to be sitting here in any physical sense. You would not deny, however, that you are conversing with me."

"Well, yes."

"What does that leave us?"

"That either I have taken leave of my senses or you are a phantom."

Holmes gave a dry chuckle. "They do say that all men are possessed of some small spice of madness in their composition, so I do not entirely discount that possibility. However, I have always regarded you as one of the most rational men of my acquaintance and, since I am seldom mistaken, I dismiss any consideration of your softening of the brain. Therefore, by a process of deduction and elimination, we are left with the inescapable, if improbable truth, that I am indeed a ghost. Are you happier in your mind now?"

"To see you, yes, but I am greatly disconcerted that it should be in this manner. Despite your impeccable reasoning, I have my doubts that you are nothing but a fevered delusion and that I should return to bed this instant."

"No, you must not do that," said he, rising abruptly.

I was aware of a slight chill in the air as he drew nearer. This close, I could believe that he was real, so solid did he appear. Instinctively, I reached out to touch him and, as before, my hand passed through his body without a hint of resistance. He watched in silence as I let my arm drop and offered me a tight smile tinged with more than a little sadness.

"Are you willing to believe me now?" said he.

"I had hoped otherwise."

"I am gone the way of all flesh, Watson. 'Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie'."

"Holmes, that is not in the slightest bit amusing."

He gave a small shrug. "As long as it serves to convince you that you are not deluded."

"That you are sat here, quoting John Webster and Robert Louis Stevenson at me proves nothing. It is just the sort of thing I would expect you say, and therefore my mind has put those words in your mouth, for what purpose I do not care to think."

"The purpose is simple enough. I need your invaluable aid and assistance, my dear fellow. If not for the urgency of the matter, I would never consider disturbing your comfortable domestic routine in such an unnecessarily dramatic manner."

"It never bothered you in the past. But what is this business that makes you rise from your grave like Hamlet's father to haunt me in such a fashion?"

Clouds rolled in to tarnish the silver of his eyes and his mood darkened. "I need a champion to fight my corner. Naturally I could think of no better person than your good self."

I eyed him closely. "Is that the only reason?"

A sly glance was shot in my direction. "I'll not deny the prospect of seeing you again had a certain appeal. However, I fear come bearing not glad tidings, but as a bird of ill omen. What I have to say will not please you."

"If it is so important that it has driven to rise from your grave to seek me out, then tell me you must. I am not so easily shocked."

"Good old Watson! You are as constant as the North Star and thrice as worthy. All the same, I hesitate to burden you with my troubles."

"Holmes, if I can help, even if you are nothing more than a figment of my imagination, you know I will."

"Even figments have their problems, my dear fellow. Well, then," said he, weighing his words as he spoke, "the matter is not so very difficult to explain. Stated simply, I suspect that my demise was not due to natural causes. In short, I have good reason for believing that I may have been murdered."

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_**After a revelation like that, there's got to be a Chapter Two!**_


	2. Chapter Two

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Two **

It is fair to say that I was appalled by this revelation. Still struggling with the notion that Sherlock Holmes had returned, albeit in somewhat unconventional form, that he should now calmly inform me that he had been murdered was too much. In turn, his words had made me both sick and cold, and for the first time in some years I found I was in dire need of tobacco to calm my nerves.

"My dear Watson, do forgive me," said my spectral visitor. "I did not anticipate that you would be this affected."

"You did not?" I said with a nervous laugh. "How did you expect me to react?"

"With your usual composure when faced with a crisis. There is no more solidly-predictable man in that respect in the whole country. I thought I could rely upon your steadfast common sense."

"Of course you can, but to tell me that you think—" I took a moment to compose myself. "Perhaps you should tell me why you believe you were murdered. Aren't you sure?"

He looked away. "No, and that's the most galling part of it. Mycroft says I'm making mountains out of molehills."

The mention of his brother had brought the old edge to his voice that I had noted in the past when the siblings were engaged in intellectual sparring. I would have never have described them as particularly close, and to the outsider their relationship seemed based on friction. Sparks flew when they were in close contact and the energy generated enough to fuel half of London. For all that, however, Mycroft's death during the 1918 influenza pandemic had been a blow to his younger brother. On the one occasion I had touched upon the subject, he had dismissed it as being the inevitable consequence of human existence. That he did not refer to it again was telling, and although he would never have admitted to it, I knew that he missed his brother sorely.

"Mycroft… is well?" I inquired, wondering if 'well' was an appropriate description.

"Well enough," said Holmes absently, as he extracted a cigarette from his case and lit it. A cloud of blue-black smoke drifted in my direction, its familiar smell a torment to an old ex-smoker. "He's made himself comfortable, but then that for Mycroft is nothing out of the ordinary. He could be set down on a desert island and still find himself an armchair. As to your next question," he added meaningfully, "I would prefer that you did not ask. It has been my experience that a refusal often offends."

"How do you know what I was about to ask?"

Holmes smiled. "You have a delightfully expressive countenance, Watson. Superficial though it may be to break in upon another fellow's thoughts, on occasion and with the right subject it is irresistible. Besides, it is only natural that you would want to know about the hereafter and certain of the people in it."

"But you aren't going to tell me."

"Would that I could, my dear boy. They were most emphatic about Rule Number Two. Hamlet's father did not lie when he said that he was forbid to tell the secrets of his prison-house." He blew smoke down his nostrils and regarded me placidly. "All I can tell you is that you are loved and missed, if that is any comfort."

"Thank you, it is."

"Good. Now, to business."

With an airy wave, he flicked away the ash of his cigarette, much to my consternation and concern for the state of the rug. I need not have worried, for the ghostly ash faded to nothing before ever touching the floor.

"Holmes, if you don't mind me asking," I began tentatively, "if you aren't sure you were murdered, why would you even think it?"

"Paranoia, Mycroft says. But no, Watson, it's more than that. It comes down to cause and effect. My death put certain events into action. Have you a recent London newspaper?"

"I have yesterday's copy of _The Standard_."

"Then it will have to do. Yes, leave it there on the desk. Now, let me see."

He held his hand above the paper and, with a rhythmic gesture akin to a conductor directing an orchestra, began to turn the pages without ever touching them. I stared at him until I caught his eye. He gave me a puzzled look.

"How do you do that?"

"I can't touch it, Watson. How else am I to read the paper?"

"Yes, but… was that you earlier, with the piece of paper that I dropped?"

"Indeed it was. I could hardly stand by and watch you crawling about the floor like a mewling infant, to say nothing of the fact that I had thought my papers would be safe in your care. Instead I find you scattering them about the room with aplomb. Hullo! Hullo! Here we are. Read that, if you will."

The half-column he had indicated concerned the efforts of a Mrs Margery Currie to obtain a posthumous pardon for her father, Matthew Swinson, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 1902 for the murder of an elderly aunt and a governess. He had died in prison two years later. An inquiry into the case was to be opened and the facts reviewed in light of new evidence.

"Swinson," I said thoughtfully. "The name does ring a bell. I believe I retrieved your case notes for the affair from your trunk just a moment ago."

"Yes, you did, and it was no coincidence. I guided you in that direction."

"How?"

"I planted the suggestion in your unconscious mind. I hope you don't mind."

"I do mind, very much. It's bad enough, Holmes, that you read my thoughts without knowing that you've taking to putting them there as well."

"Then I apologise. I must own that it was by way of an experiment in any case. I was testing my limits."

"Well, test them on someone else. Stamford warned me from the start that you had cold-blooded tendencies. I seem to remember that I spent half my time at Baker Street wondering if you had laced my food with something lethal just to observe the effects."

"You survived," Holmes said noncommittally.

I stared at him as the inference of his words struck home. "Do you mean to say that you did?"

"Not often."

"_How_ often?"

He took a moment to consider, less, as I thought, out of an effort of remembrance, and more to gauge at what level I was likely to take offence. Had he bothered to ask, I could have told him in no uncertain terms.

"Only once or twice," he finally admitted.

"Once _or_ twice?"

"Five times."

"Holmes!"

He frowned. "Come now, Watson, do you believe I would ever risk your life unnecessarily? It was only ever a tincture of some tried and tested substance that I had refined."

"For instance?"

"Oh, an extract of _Ricinus communis_."

"The castor oil plant? Holmes, the seeds are poisonous."

"Yes, I know. I took all the necessary precautions. I reserved a dose of that for myself and gave you…"

"Yes?"

"_Cassia angustiflora_."

"Senna? You were testing purgatives?"

He sniffed imperiously. "It was for a case, Watson. Do you remember Hobson? He swallowed the evidence in the Whitefriars' case and carried it away with him. Since it took Bradstreet eight hours to locate and arrest him, I needed to observe how long it would have taken for the evidence, if assisted, to make a reappearance, as it were."

"Did you?"

"Of course. The experiment was a great success. I was then able to discover where he had hidden it before his arrest."

"I don't recall the details. Where was I?"

"You were ill," he said. "And had taken to your bed. You concluded that it was something you had eaten. I thought it best not to dissuade you from that belief."

"Of all the confounded—"

"It was in a good cause," said he, his tone suggesting that I was making a fuss about nothing.

"What else?" I demanded.

"Water under the bridge, Watson, none of which matters now. What does is the Swinson case. If the facts are to be called into question, if the evidence to be reviewed, then my part in the affair is bound to come under scrutiny since I played a pivotal role in the man's arrest. My being dead means that I will not be able to defend myself against scurrilous charges."

"What charges do you anticipate?"

"That is what we need to discover. I cannot fathom what nature of new evidence has come to light. The facts were clear enough. Swinson murdered his aunt because he needed money to pay off his debts. He then murdered his young sister's governess because she knew what he had done and had threatened to go to the police unless he gave her money. Watson, he confessed! I confronted him with his crimes and without hesitation he admitted to both murders."

I listened in silence and took my time framing my next question. "There was nothing… dubious about the investigation, was there?"

His brows arched upwards. "Whatever do you mean?"

"No burglary or anything like that? Holmes, I have known you for too long—"

"In which case you should know better than to ask such things. The case was clear-cut. There was a question over the evidence, I'll grant you, but it made no difference. We had a confession. That was all the court needed."

"Then what is this new evidence?"

"I do not know."

"It must be compelling for them to have reopened the case."

"I tell you, Watson, I do not know."

I sat back in my chair with a sigh. I was not sure whether Holmes was being deliberately evasive or was as ignorant of this development as he claimed to be. If this was nothing more than a ploy to pique my interest in the case, then it was working for I was intrigued.

"For a ghost," I suggested, "you don't appear to know very much."

"That is because you have a false idea of ghosts and their capabilities. My whole life was spent in the purpose of that knowledge which would allow me to become the ideal reasoner. Having encountered that last great mystery, I find I can go no further."

"I thought you said once that education never ends."

"True," he conceded. "But I am not yet ready to make the sacrifice that pure enlightenment demands."

"Which is?"

His eyes gleamed with that intense light I remembered of old. "To reach that level of perfection where all is known. To _become_ knowledge itself. It has appeal, I'll not deny it. But to achieve it requires that I lose my very essence. Having gained the one, I must lose the other. What purpose is to be gained from the acquisition of infinite knowledge if one cannot put it to good use? The cause is self-defeating. Besides," he added, almost and unconvincingly as an afterthought, "I would not go without you."

"Then you may have to wait a long time," I said. "I am not sure that I want to lose myself in infinite knowledge."

"In which case we shall have to rub along as best we can." A spontaneous and fleeting smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Now, as regards Swinson, you do see how my demise clears the way for a review of the case. If his family intend to cast doubt upon his confession, my testimony would have been damning, for I was present at the time."

"And this is why you believe you were murdered? Swinson's family did it? Holmes, that is a little—"

"Paranoid?"

"No, I was going to say extreme. If you don't mind me saying, old fellow, you appear to be getting ahead of yourself. How many times have you told me that it is a capital mistake to theorise before you have all the evidence?"

"You wrote those stories, you tell me," he said ungraciously. "The fact is you were constantly misquoting me. I lost count of the number of times people told me that Chopin never wrote a piece for the violin."

"That was a slip of the pen."

"A slip that occurred far too often."

"Even so, Holmes, it seems a little far-fetched."

"Does it? Who knows that Sherlock Holmes is dead?"

"No one, save me."

"Swinson's family know, I'll wager. His daughter began her cause several weeks after my passing. Conclusive, wouldn't you say?"

"Not at all. A coincidence perhaps."

"I don't believe in coincidences, Watson."

"Very well, let us assume for one moment that you are right. How did they kill you? The death certificate said it was heart attack."

"Nonsense, I was as healthy as a horse. My constitution was always formidable."

I said nothing. Contradicting Sherlock Holmes was something attempted by the brave or foolhardy. Since I still had my doubts about the nature of this apparition and the state of my own wits, I had no intention to start an argument with something that may have been nothing more than a manifestation of my confused mind.

"It is obvious to me," he continued, "that I was poisoned."

I was worried he would say that. The stipulations of Holmes's will had been explicit as to certain of his funeral arrangements, not least his insistence on cremation. "That will be hard to prove now."

"Yes, confound it! If I had anticipated this eventuality, I would have made provision. But what else was I do to? Too many people coveted my skull for my liking. I had no intention of being dug up by some ghoul with an interest in my supra-orbital development. Besides, if there is no grave, then no one can ever say with any certainty if one is dead or not."

"A touch of vanity, Holmes?"

"Immortality, Watson, isn't that what everyone wants?"

His smile faded into a frown, and his gaze moved to the desultory contemplation of his hands. Not for the first time, I wondered what dark thoughts boiled behind those stormy eyes.

"But one would not wish for infamy," he went on. "The Swinson case will undoubtedly raise questions. You do see my problem? Should any doubt be cast over my name, the door would be opened for the numerous other profligates and ne'er-do-wells, whom I strove to place behind bars. A host of criminals would be released onto the streets, with only the official forces of law and order to defend the common man from their nefarious activities. This is why I have come to you. Any question mark over my judgement must be eradicated before the canker takes hold, for believe me, my friend, it most surely will."

This was grave news indeed, and I could see why such a prospect would have deeply disturbed his noble soul.

"I understand. But what can I do, Holmes? It seems to have escaped your notice that I am not as sprightly as I used to be. I can't go off gallivanting about the country like a young buck."

"You aren't that old."

"You've forgotten, haven't you?"

"Not at all." His eyes narrowed in an effort of remembrance. "Seventy-eight."

"Seventy-nine," I corrected him. "You've missed a birthday."

"Watson, I'm not asking you to scale mountains or wrestle lions. I merely ask that you help me in reviewing the evidence and questioning certain of the witnesses to place the case beyond doubt. Now, that doesn't sound too onerous, does it?"

I considered. The proposition was not entirely unpleasant and well within my capabilities, although what my daughter would say about her aged father embarking on such a plan of campaign I did not care to think. What she might do if I told her I was doing so on behalf of a ghost was another matter entirely.

"And if I refuse?" I asked.

Holmes shrugged lightly. "Then I shall have to haunt you until you are persuaded to change your mind."

"Are you proposing to do that anyway?"

"No, I am here under sufferance and have been told in no uncertain terms that I was not to 'interfere in the mortal existence of all things that live and breathe and walk the face of the earth'. That was Rule Number One. Since I cannot interfere, then it must be done by proxy, and for that purpose I appoint you, my trusted friend, to meddle on my behalf."

"Is that all?"

"You would prefer some greater stricture?"

"Well, no. But am I the only person who can see you?"

"You are my chosen subject, yes."

I shook my head. "If I am not mad already, then by the time this business is concluded, I most surely shall be!"

Holmes beamed. "Good old Watson, I knew you would not let me down. Now, when are you able to leave?"

* * *

_**No scaling mountains or wrestling lions, but I bet it's not going to be easy as Holmes would have Watson believe. We'll have to see what Chapter Three has in store…**_


	3. Chapter Three

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Three**

"It's the spark plugs, mark my words."

It was a little after half past twelve. Holmes had insisted that we waste no time with the case and had proposed a journey, our ultimate destination known only to him. His love of secrecy remained as intense as ever, as had his preference for the train, but on that point I had made a stand for my trusty little Ford.

Unfortunately it had come to a rattling, wheezing halt in the middle of Westminster Bridge, where it decided to remain for the foreseeable future, despite my best efforts to probe the secrets beneath its bonnet. I was sure the problem lay with the petrol; Holmes, never letting me forgetting the years he had posed as a motor expert for Von Bork, considered himself an authority on the subject and had decided, without having looked at the engine, that dirty spark plugs were to blame.

I do not know if my experience is unique, but if there is one thing worse than being haunted by a ghost, then it is being haunted by a ghost with a vast and detailed knowledge on a variety of subjects and a habit of speaking his mind. Seated in the passenger seat, calmly smoking and making comments about my failure to get us on the move again, it was the fifth time Holmes had given me the benefit of his opinion, and my patience was beginning to wear thin.

"There's nothing wrong with the spark plugs," I retorted.

"Really, Watson," said he. "The vehicle was worthy enough in its day, but now it's…" He surveyed the car with a critical eye. "What's the delightful word the press has for it now? Ah, yes, it's a _jalopy_."

"She most certainly is not," I said hotly, causing a passing gentleman to give me worried glance. I remembered that I alone could see Holmes and moderated my tone of voice accordingly. "She's a little rough around the edges, but she's a sturdy machine."

Holmes summoned a wintry smile. "Beauty being in the eye of the beholder."

My little green Model T Runabout was perhaps past her best, but I had a fondness for her and found Holmes's remarks unwarranted, considering that she had served him well enough when we had been called upon to play chauffeur and vehicle to his Altamont. After the War, I had returned to find her paint peeling and her leather seats sadly suffering. Better cars had come along since, but I felt a loyalty to her that stayed my hand when considering whether to invest in a newer model.

Today, however, she was not helping her cause in leaving me stranded at the side of the road, cursing the steaming engine and wishing I had taken the train as Holmes had suggested. Worse than that, I had my suspicions he was right about the spark plugs.

"I've been thinking," I said, eager to steer him away from a further discussion of my car's shortcomings.

"Thinking you should get a new car?"

"No. About you, Holmes, about your _problem_."

"My murder, you mean."

"Your _alleged_ murder. You agree there's the question of proof." I glanced over at him, and he nodded. "Since we can't dig you up to test that theory, I was thinking that you could describe your symptoms."

"My _symptoms_," he said, with marked distaste. "How indelicately you put it, Watson. Your bedside manner has always been questionable. Now you ask me to describe the manner of my death as though it is nothing more than the common cold."

"You will have to. We have no other way of verifying your claim. And you are mistaken, Holmes. I'm not in the least detached about it. I find the very thought that you might have been murdered most disturbing. So, please, tell me."

He looked away, out over the sullen grey river, where a tug was making headway against the current on its way westwards.

"Well, I'd been feeling tired for a few days," he began. "That afternoon I'd been out walking on the Downs. It was a warm day, and I remember feeling rather breathless and weak. Dizzy and nauseous too, and strange sensation here." He indicated his upper abdomen. "I put it down to the weather or even something I had eaten that had not agreed with me. I sat down in the armchair, closed my eyes and…"

He trailed off into silence. I did not press him further.

"Your diagnosis, Doctor," he said after a minute.

"It might have been a heart attack according to the symptoms you've described."

"Equally those of a number of poisons."

Seeing his expression, I put down my oily rag and came round to the passenger side of the car. "You have something specific in mind, haven't you?"

"It is often the case that a murderer will not stray too far from the tried and tested formula. What has proved effective in the past may do so again. The elderly aunt that Swinson killed, he poisoned her using taxine."

"Derived from the yew tree."

"Exactly. Given a large enough dose, death may occur so rapidly that there are no symptoms at all."

"Perhaps. But if it was a sudden as you say, why was there not inquest?" My train of thought led to a worrying conclusion. "I should speak to your doctor and question him on that point."

"You expect an honest answer if he's involved?"

"No, but I'll try for one in any case. There is a something you haven't considered – how the poison was administered."

"Mrs Crabtree had opened a new pot of honey that morning. I neglected to check whether it had been tampered with." He gestured to his hands. "Rheumatism can be inconvenient in that respect. It makes one careless."

"You think your housekeeper poisoned you?" I said, aghast. The woman was elderly herself, and kindly with it. I could no more imagine her committing murder than our late landlady, late Mrs Hudson.

"No, no," Holmes said tersely. "Someone could have come in from outside and put the taxine in the honey. Mrs Crabtree was always forgetful about locking doors. Force of habit, she said." His restless eyes moved to a point just beyond my shoulder. "It's galling to think that my own honey might have been put to such a use against me. I find that the most disagreeable aspect of the whole affair."

"I wonder what happened to the jar. If Mrs Crabtree kept it, she could be in danger."

"Watson…"

"If she hasn't been poisoned already!"

Holmes winced. "We aren't alone."

Someone cleared their throat behind me, and I turned to find a large policeman standing a few feet away, watching me curiously. I was not deceived by his plump, sleepy face or his slightly deferential manner, for the eyes beneath the thick black eyebrows were hard and suspicious.

"Is everything all right, sir?"

There was an accusatory tone about his question that I did not like.

"My car has broken down, officer," I explained.

"Tell him it's the spark plugs," Holmes offered.

"No, it isn't!"

"No, what isn't, sir?" asked the officer, his brow becoming more furrowed by the minute.

"Isn't going," I said, reminding myself only to respond to Holmes's muttered comments when we were alone. "The car, I mean."

"Ah, well, that'll be something mechanical." He took a step back to better survey the vehicle and his face took on that benevolent smile of the enthusiast. "My old Dad always had a fancy for one of these. Model T, is it, sir? Pre-war by the look of it."

"Yes, 1912."

"Good solid machine." He patted the bonnet and the suspension gave a troubled groan. "Yes, you don't see many like this nowadays."

"Probably because they're stranded at roadsides across the country in various states of disrepair," said Holmes.

"Your father had a Ford?" I asked, ignoring my spectral critic.

"No, too expensive for his pocket. He's got an Austin now. Nice little motor it is too. Proper side doors and windows, and room for more folk in the back."

He glanced at the interior of my vehicle, with its cracked leather seats, its sides open to the elements, and scant protection offered to the driver from the foldable roof, which did not extend far enough back to cover the sole passenger in the back seat. His expression was eloquence itself and allowed me to anticipate his next question.

"You must find the lack of doors a touch draughty during the winter, I dare say."

"A touch draughty during the summer too," Holmes commented.

"It suits me," I said, a lone voice of support for my beleaguered vehicle in a sea of criticism. "When it's going, that is."

"Yes," the officer said thoughtfully. "Not run out of petrol, have you, sir? Plenty of oil and water? Have you checked the spark plugs?"

Holmes laughed.

"I was just about to do so."

"Well, hand me a spanner and I'll have a look for you."

I endured the humiliation in dignified silence whilst the plugs were extracted, found to be corroded, cleaned and returned to their sockets. My mortification was complete when with a turn of the starting handle, the car roared into life and hummed excitedly in joyous expectation of recommencing our journey.

"You might want to get that engine looked at," was the officer's final words of wisdom. "She looks like she could do with stripping down and being given a good clean."

I assured the officer that I would do as he advised, and we rejoined the traffic heading into Westminster. Holmes had grace enough not to say that he had told me so regarding the fault with the car; had he done so, I fear I would have been rather short with him. As sympathetic as I was to his plight, there was only so much of his self-congratulatory remarks and caustic brand of humour that I was prepared to take. Whether he read my mood or not, it was fortunate that he confined himself to giving only directions rather than opinions.

That they came usually too late and usually when I was in the wrong lane of traffic did not help matters. Any London-dweller can testify to the fact that a lot can change on the roads in a year. Angry words and horns followed us as we met blocked entrances and one-way streets. We got lost somewhere in Mayfair and did several laps of Grosvenor Square while Holmes got his bearings. Finally we did a left into Oxford Street and found ourselves in a long line of slow-moving traffic and irate drivers. After a ten minute wait, in which we advanced less than 20 yards, and Holmes had the audacity to tell me that we were going in the wrong direction, I took matters into my own hands and took the next right into a street familiar to us both.

"Watson, this is Baker Street," said my companion uneasily.

"Yes, it's the shortest route to the Marylebone Road. Hopefully, the traffic should be lighter there."

"You do realise this will take us past our former lodgings?"

"Yes." His tone of voice suggested that he was not altogether comfortable with the idea. "Is that a problem?"

He shook his head. "No. I've haven't been this way since I moved away from London."

"Why?"

"I have always held that one should not go back. It invariably leads to disappointment. However, now we are here…"

I slowed the car as the house came into view and parked outside. Outwardly it had not changed, save that the motor car had replaced the clattering hansoms of memory and a young lady walking past our old front door had a skirt much shorter than her mother would have worn.

"Some things don't change," I said, nodding to the house across the street. "Camden House is still empty."

Holmes was not listening to me, but staring up at the windows of our old rooms, across which were draped full net curtains. I thought back to the number of times I had arrived at this spot on fog-bound nights and glanced up to see the yellow glow of the gaslight and a familiar silhouette against the blinds. A surge of nostalgic longing gripped my insides and

"I wonder what it's like up there," said Holmes. "Does any trace of our past remain, do you think?"

"You've grown sentimental in your dotage," I said, chuckling.

"No, but I remember, Watson."

"We had some good times."

"They were _all_ good times when we were there together." With a quicksilver move, he sprang out of the car. "I won't be long. Wait for me."

"You're going in?" I asked.

"I lost a gold cufflink in the move and I want to see if it's still there."

"Nigh on thirty years later? I seriously doubt it."

"Nevertheless, I have an urge to pry. Leave the engine running. If you stop it now, we may never get it started again."

So saying, he started for the sturdy front door and passed through it into the hall beyond. That he should do so did not surprise me; that I should be sat outside our former rooms waiting for him to return was, however, just a trifle absurd. Had anyone asked me the reason for my loitering, I do not know what I should have said. To admit that I was waiting for a ghost who was visiting one of his former haunts – if the pun may be excused – would have raised some serious questions as to my sanity. Then there was the problem of how long I should wait. I could hardly knock on the door and ask if my friend, who happened to be a ghost, was going to be much longer. If my mind was playing tricks on me and a delusion had brought me thus far, I had to consider how far I should humour it.

My concerns were allayed, however, when Holmes proved as good as his word and soon rematerialised on the street side of the door. His expression gave nothing away, so that I was forced to ask what he had seen.

"Cheap wallpaper, paper shades and an overloud wireless," he said critically. "And my cufflink is nowhere to be seen."

"What did you expect after all this time?" I asked as we proceeded towards the Marylebone Road.

"Respect, Watson. A man's cufflinks are sacrosanct."

"Hang the cufflinks, Holmes. I meant what did you expect to find upstairs?"

A long moment passed before he answered. "Proof that one had lived and that that living was not in vain."

"You have that already. If I write nothing else, your legacy is assured."

"Although not as I would have wished it." He sighed and some of the gloom went out of him. "Well, it is too late now. We have our exits and our entrances, and one man in his time may play many parts. Today, my friend, we play the part of detective, and like greyhounds in the slips, we strain for the start. This is, indeed, like the old days."

"Unfortunately, Holmes, before the game can be afoot, I'm going to need some directions." We had reached the end of the street and a decision was needed, especially as the driver of the car behind was fast growing impatient. "East or west?"

"East."

"A curious choice," I noted, as we joined the traffic heading towards Euston. "Are you going to tell me where we are going or is it to be a surprise?"

"I would have thought it was obvious. We're going to see the other principle witness in the Swinson case."

"And who might that be?"

Holmes smiled. "Can't you guess? Why, it's Lestrade of course."

* * *

_**So, the boys are off to see an old friend. Chapter Four is going to be interesting...**_


	4. Chapter Four

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Four**

Later that afternoon, having escaped the traffic, we arrived in the greener and less crowded suburbs to the north of the city. I did not have to rely on Holmes's sense of direction, for I knew Lestrade's address, as we had kept up a desultory correspondence over the years, mostly confined now to exchanging Christmas cards. He lived in one of those anonymous developments that had sprung up on the outskirts of London, where every house resembled its neighbour, with mock-Tudor gables, bow windows and neat front gardens. He was not home, so the lady next door informed me when she saw me knocking, and my best bet was to seek him out at his allotment.

A short walk brought us the area of land next to the railways cuttings set aside for those industrious residents who had the inclination to grow their own fruit and vegetables. This early in the year, several cherry trees drooped beneath layers of pink-white petals, felting the roofs of ramshackle sheds in delicate pastel shades like the icing of so many cakes. Some plots showed carefully-tilled furrows where new shoots were thrusting their heads above the clotted mixture of manure and earth. Others had been given over to nodding daffodils, while a few had been left to Nature's own inclination and had become weed-tangled wildernesses.

Picking my way along the muddy and trampled path of worn grass, I was glad that I had worn tweeds and my old boots. Holmes, in his immaculate black and with an enviable shine on his shoes, looked incongruous amidst such surroundings. I was tempted to suggest that he should have dressed down for the occasion when I noticed that he was neither gathering mud on his soles or leaving footprints in his wake. With a touch of regret, I realised that I was becoming so accustomed his presence that it was easy to forget that he was no longer a creature of flesh and blood.

In the middle of a working day, few souls were to be found tending their plots. I cast about for Lestrade, and saw what I thought was a singularly-unimpressive scarecrow, complete with battered straw hat, tatty coat and a disreputable pair of trousers. Only when it moved did I realise that it was a living being; more than that, it was our old friend, hard at work with a hoe in that never-ending war against dandelions and bindweed.

He did not respond to my call and, as I drew nearer, I caught snatches of the song he was singing to himself, which sounded very much like an out-of-tune version of _Button Up Your Overcoat_.

"Excellent advice," I said, loud enough for him to hear.

He turned, startled by the sudden presence behind him, and on seeing me his face broke into a smile. Lestrade – or properly Chief Inspector Lestrade as he had been when he had retired from the police – had nine years on me, but that afternoon I felt the older man after witnessing his display of industry. Stooped, unsteady and a thicker around the waist than I remembered, he still looked better than many of his contemporaries. His cheeks bore a bloom brought about by his toil and the fresh crisp air, and his luxuriant head of white hair would have been the envy of many a younger man. He was genuinely pleased to see me and, peeling off a soil-stained glove, shook my hand warmly.

"Well, well, Dr Watson, this is a pleasure," said he. "It's been too long, really it has. I must say though, you look prosperous. Life treating you well?"

"Well enough. It's good to see you, Lestrade."

"You'll have to forgive my appearance, but this is dirty work. They say it's meant to be good for you, but I've a crick in my back to prove otherwise."

"Keeping busy is always advisable."

"I can't disagree with you there, Doctor. I'd rather be out here than sitting at home. All the same, you should have let me know you were coming. This is hardly the place for a reunion."

"It was something of an impromptu impulse," I said. "Please don't let me stop you."

"No, I'm glad of the break, if truth be told. Here, sit yourself down," said he gesturing to a bale of straw that had been left by the side of his hut. "Now, how about a celebratory drink?" He gave a knowing wink. "I've something special in the shed that I've been saving for someone who can appreciate a good vintage."

As he shuffled away into the hut, Holmes wandered back into my line of vision. I had been aware that he had been drifting about amongst the other plots and the intense light of his eyes alerted me that he had found something to awaken his interest.

"I wouldn't drink it if I were you," said he. "If it's not potato wine, then it's bound to be parsnip. Either way, it's probably lethal."

"Good thing then that I'm _not_ you," I replied. "I don't intend to offend him by refusing."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you."

His gaze turned to the door of the shed where Lestrade had reappeared carrying two tin cups and was heading purposefully in my direction.

"He can't see you either?" I muttered under my breath.

"No," said Holmes. "As I told you before, only you have that privilege."

"Oh, privilege, is it?"

"Certainly it is. I chose you, Watson, and you alone. However, I acknowledge that it does have its limitations. Communicating only with you means that I am reliant upon your good will to pass on certain information I have gleaned about the other allotment holders. For example, you might mention to Lestrade to forebear from complaining yet again about his neighbour for the time being. The man shows signs of change for the better."

"Complaining about his neighbour?" I echoed in disbelief. "How on earth—"

"Oh, you've heard about him, have you?" said Lestrade. He sat down on the straw bale beside me with a groan that mellowed into a heartfelt sigh of relief. "It's a relief to be off my feet for a while. There you go, Doctor," said he, pressing a cup into my hand. "You try that and tell me what you think."

I stared at the murky contents. It could have passed easily for liquid mud, and a coating of cream foam had adhered to the sides of the cup and showed no sign of dissolving.

"On your head be it, Watson," said Holmes.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Parsnip wine." There was a degree of pride in his voice as he spoke. "Brewed it myself last year. It should be just about ready by now. Well, here's to your good health, Dr Watson."

The toast was somewhat ambitious, especially for a brew that smelt like a household detergent and burned the tongue like a dose of molten lava. After a good deal of coughing, it was a moment before either of us could speak.

"Very smooth," I wheezed.

"Do you think it could do with a few more weeks to bring the flavour out?"

"No, I'd say it was potent enough already." When he looked away, I tipped the remnants onto the ground. I crushed the incriminating residue of cream slime beneath my boot. "You were saying about your neighbour?"

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "Oh, him. Brannigan is his name and a blasted nuisance he is. Look at the state of it over there. It's his bindweed that's infesting my plot."

The area was indeed a tangled, overgrown mass of weeds, thistles and ivy. Unkempt and uncared for, it could not have been more different than Lestrade's tidy plot.

"Who told you about him?" Lestrade asked. "Was it Matthews? He's none too happy with him either."

"How did I know?"

I hoped it sounded like a rhetorical question, although it was directed at Holmes. He pointed down to a length of ivy had escaped from the wilderness and was determinedly wrapping itself around the trunk of a young apple tree.

"The direction of the roots," I said, understanding his gesture. "It looks like you're being invaded."

"I certainly am, Doctor, and no mistaking. He used to have one of the prettiest plots here; now look at it. He let it go after his wife died."

"Marigold," said Holmes absently. "She passed away three years ago."

"Was her name Marigold by any chance?" I inquired.

Lestrade stared at me. "You _do_ know him."

"Not at all."

"Then how did you know his wife's name was Marigold?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Lestrade."

"Try me."

I looked up at Holmes. "Well…"

He nodded in the direction of Mr Brannigan's overgrown plot. "In the midst of the weeds there is a small area cleared and planted with marigolds. The leaf is distinctive. In the middle is a rosemary bush with approximately three years of growth. Rosemary is traditionally planted for remembrance; therefore, it is a memorial of sorts. The ribbons attached to it suggest the deceased was a woman. The marigold is an unusual choice of flower for a memorial, so it must have had some significance for the deceased. I deduced it must have been her name. Lestrade was kind enough to confirm the nature of the relationship."

I relayed this information to Lestrade, who appeared suitably impressed. "Furthermore, I think you should give him a little more time before putting in another complaint."

"Why's that?"

I had to fill a long silence with a cough and sneeze whilst Holmes finished filling his pipe and lit it before supplying the necessary information.

"There is a new shovel in his shed and he has sharpened the blades of his shears. Why would he bother to do that unless he intended to tackle the weeds? Granted, he is a stubborn man – his refusal to clear his plot before now despite complaints from his neighbours proves that – but he has a sentimental nature and no garden of his own, which is why he has created a memorial for his deceased wife here. Oh, and he was a naval man by profession. The knots on that length of twine which used to support runner beans are unmistakeable."

"If only Mr Holmes could hear you now," said Lestrade, laughing. "That's as fine a piece of detective work as anything he ever came up with."

With Holmes watching me keenly, I framed my reply with care. "Having worked with him for so long, one does tends to learn a few of the techniques."

"True enough. Here, do you smell something burning, Doctor?" Lestrade was sniffing the air as the ghostly vapours from the pipe drifted in our direction. "For a minute there, it reminded me of that terrible mix our old friend Mr Holmes used to smoke."

"Terrible?" Holmes echoed with asperity.

"There used to be a rare fog in your rooms some times," Lestrade went on amiably, oblivious to the distinct chill that was emanating from our spectral companion. "The wife always knew when I'd stopped by at Baker Street, because she said the smell of the smoke used to linger on my clothes for days."

"Whoever said that if all men knew what others said of them, there would not be four friends in the world spoke the truth," Holmes muttered. "Nothing sours friendship more than candour, however well intentioned. You might remind him, Watson, of that old adage of never speaking ill of the dead, for you never know who might be listening."

"Actually," I said, eager to move the conversation on before he was tempted into something more drastic than words, "it's regarding Holmes that I'm here. It's about one of his cases."

"The Swinson business? I thought it might be something like that."

"I understand the case has been reopened."

"You understand correctly. There was talk about new evidence."

"Do you know what it is?"

He shook his head. "They wouldn't tell me."

"They've been to see you?"

"Interrogate me, more like it," said he bitterly. "They wanted a statement about my handling of the case. I told them what I said at the time – Swinson confessed of his own free will. No one forced him."

"Is that what they're saying?"

He was about to take another sip of parsnip wine and thought better of it. "What they're saying is that we tricked Swinson into confessing. I resent that implication. I was always an honest copper. I can hold my head up and be proud of that if nothing else."

"You don't have to tell me, Lestrade."

"Oh, but I do. People have short memories. They forget."

"How true," Holmes agreed.

"This generation doesn't know what it was like back then. Take all that talk about the 'flapper vote' a couple of years back – you'd never have had anything like that before the War. We just went ahead and got on with things. As for all these 'Bright Young People' – we didn't have time for gadding about all over the place because we were all too busy working for a living."

"We had our moments."

"What's more," said he, warming to his subject, "if a man said he was guilty, then he was guilty. We had no reason to disbelieve him."

The old fire had returned to his eyes and I could see that he was angered by this accusation of mishandling, as well he might be. After all his years of faithful service, the respect he was owed seemed to be sadly lacking.

"I take it that Mr Holmes is no longer with us?" he asked.

It was a difficult question to answer, given that the man in question was standing before me, albeit only visible to my eyes.

"Not in the physical sense," I replied. Lestrade looked at me curiously. "He died last year. I'm sorry I didn't inform you, but Holmes left strict instructions about that. He didn't want anyone to know."

"You don't have to tell me, Doctor. I never knew a more secretive fellow in all my life. He had a touch of genius, you can't deny that, but he had some funny ways about him."

I felt the temperature drop several degrees lower despite the warmth of the sun.

"I only ask," said Lestrade, pulling his coat closer about him, "because his testimony would have been useful in clearing up this case. My word alone doesn't carry much clout any more."

There was no trace of bitterness in his voice as he spoke or note of accusation. The sentiment was enough for me to feel that old sense of guilt squeeze at my conscience. We had never spoken directly about how I portrayed his character in my writings; indeed, I had noticed that he avoided any mention of the subject. Had I been in his position, I would have been less than pleased for the world to know that I was thought 'devoid of reason' by London's foremost and famed consulting detective, and less than forgiving of the man who put pen to paper and enshrined remarks better forgotten forever in print.

It made it worse that he did not blame me, or at least never admitted to it. I had tried in the past to absolve myself with the thought that the words had been Holmes's, and that I, acting as chronicler, had merely been the instrument by which his talents and deeds had become known to the world. That consolation allowed me to sleep at night, but I was never entirely convinced.

Given my time over, I would have been kinder. I would have also exercised greater discretion. The enthusiasm with which I had taken up my pen after the events I had entitled _A Study in Scarlet_ had blinded me to the consequences for the others involved in that drama. The testimonials the officers had received as fitting recognition of their services seemed less than glowing when the other side of the argument had been presented. I had not realised it at the time, but others were to follow my lead. Before long, our combined efforts had conspired to turn Scotland Yard into the Aunt Sally of detective fiction. In the popular imagination, one of the finest institutions in the world in the fight against crime was seemingly staffed by pompous and sadly inept officers, who took perverse delight in arresting the wrong man despite all evidence to the contrary, only to be ultimately outwitted by the superior intelligence of the gifted amateur.

I was not proud of my role in that degradation, and never more was my sense of betrayal more palpable than on that balmy afternoon.

"I'm sorry," I said. It was a poor recompense for the damage we had done to the man's reputation. "If it is my fault you are in this situation—"

"Your fault, Doctor? Why ever would you think that?" The light of realisation came into his eyes. "Oh, I see. No, it's not your fault, although I appreciate the gesture. If anything, it's the consequence of old age. They seem to think because I'm old, I'm senile. But I'm not. I can remember what happened when Swinson confessed as though it was yesterday."

"What did happen?"

He sighed heavily. "I've told it so many times, I might as tell it again. Well, then, right from the start Mr Holmes was certain that Swinson had strangled the governess because of the clothes she was wearing. I said it was her intended she'd gone to meet, but Mr Holmes argued that she wasn't dressed for walking out with her young man. Also, the marks the killer left on her neck were those of a right-handed man, while her fiancé was left-handed. He'd worn a ring too, on the middle finger of his left hand. When we questioned Swinson, he was wearing a ring on his right hand, but there was a light mark on the light where the ring had been. He'd switched it over, you see. Even I saw that."

He glanced at me to see if I betrayed any sign of doubting him before continuing.

"Then there was the question of motive. I thought it might have been a case of a jealous woman threatening to spoil her lover's chances with anyone else, because Swinson had a young lady friend he didn't want his aunt to know about. Turns out that they were more than just friends – he'd married her, but kept it a secret."

"Why?"

"The aunt didn't approve of the girl. Swinson and his sister were living under her roof, you see, and had to abide by her rules."

"This was the aunt that Swinson murdered?"

Lestrade nodded. "We didn't know it at the time, although Mr Holmes thought that the murder of the governess, coming as it did so soon after the death of the aunt, had to be connected. He was right about that too. Swinson soon changed his story when Mr Holmes told him that the aunt's body was to be exhumed."

"That was when he confessed to both murders, I take it."

"Indeed it was, Doctor, and never was a man more eager to get it off his chest. Truth was that we hadn't been intending to exhume the aunt at all, but just the suggestion of it was enough to make Swinson see that the game was up. He said he'd killed both women and he never changed his story from that day on."

"In that case, why didn't he hang?"

"There were doubts raised about his mental state. He was certainly a queer fish. Very nervous he was, and had a strange way of looking at you and talking. I remember though that he was very insistent that he had done it – in fact, he was all for forgoing the trial and being sent straight to prison." He rubbed a hand across eyes and sighed. "You know, Doctor, I've given this case a lot of thought over the past few weeks. Perhaps we did scare a confession out of him, but all the evidence pointed to Swinson. He was guilty."

"His daughter seems to believe otherwise."

"I can see how she'd want her father to be proved innocent, but you can't get away from the facts. He strangled the governess and poisoned the aunt so that he could have her money."

"Who did get the money?"

"The sister, Mabel Swinson. She would have only have been about seven or eight at the time of the crime. There was a good ten years between them, but Swinson was devoted to her. When we arrested him, he kept asking what would become of her, poor lass. Another member of the family took her in until she came into her inheritance, as I recall."

"Does she believe her brother was innocent?"

"I don't know. Perhaps we should ask her."

"That is exactly what I intend to do."

I rose to my feet, glad to be free of the prickling straw.

"You, Dr Watson, investigating the case after all this time? Is that wise?"

"At my age, you mean?" I said smiling. "Experience has to count for something, Lestrade. Will you join me? I would appreciate your assistance."

From the furrowing of the tight lines around his eyes, I could tell that he was giving it serious consideration. Then, after a moment, he shook his head. "No, this detecting lark is a young man's game. Not that I doubt your ability, Doctor, and it's good of you to be making the effort on my behalf, but I can't come with you. I find it a struggle most days to walk here from my house. All the same, it wouldn't sit right with me, knowing you were out there on your own." His gaze moved to a point just beyond my right shoulder and a wry smile settled across his features. "But if I can't go with you, I know someone who might."

* * *

_**Who is the mystery person? We'll find out in Chapter Five…**_


	5. Chapter Five

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Five**

With these enigmatic words ringing in my ears, I turned to see a young man of twenty idling along the grassy path in our general direction.

Well-proportioned, loose-limbed, of fair complexion, and with a face too long-featured to be considered handsome, the resemblance to Lestrade was too marked for the newcomer to be anything other than a family member. That same sharpness of feature that in the older man had led to several of my more unflattering descriptions was in the younger softened by the roundness of youth, and his mild blue eyes did not possess that keenness I remembered of old but were large and guileless, as in one not awakened to the vices and horrors of the world.

He ambled towards us in no great hurry, his chin tilted up, his gaze skywards and his hands stuck firmly in his pockets, adding further creases to his already crumpled jacket. He had the air of one untroubled by the every day concerns of other men, as though his thoughts were on other, but not necessarily higher, things. Overall, my first impression was of a good-natured, carefree and careless young man.

Indeed, so preoccupied was he that he wandered from the path and proceeded to trample a row of delicate seedlings in a neighbouring bed, seemingly quite oblivious to the destruction he was causing. It took a call from Lestrade to bring him back to his senses, and by the time he reached us he was safely back on the path and the smile that had warmed his face beneath the untidy blond curls was evidence enough of the affection he felt for the older man.

"I don't think you've met my grandson," said Lestrade with no small measure of pride. "George, someone I'd like you to meet. An old friend of mine, Dr…" He faltered and gave me an uneasy glance. "This is Dr Wat_ford_, George."

I had scarce time to dispute the liberty taken with my name than my hand was grasped and shaken enthusiastically.

"Pleased to meet you, sir." His smile slowly faded as the significance of my title finally made its mark. Behind the fair lashes, his clear eyes suddenly became troubled. "You're a doctor, sir? Is this a professional call? You're not ill, are you, grandfather?"

"No, of course not, lad," came the impatient reply. "We've been talking over old times, that's all. And where have you been? You should have been back an hour ago."

"There was traffic," George said vaguely. "I was held up."

"Well, now you're here, you can make yourself useful. Old Mr Parsons says he's got some manure going spare. Go over there with the wheelbarrow and see what he's got before he changes his mind. Be sure you get the well-rotted stuff, mind. I don't want any of that fresh muck I saw him shovelling up after the milkman's horse had been round yesterday."

George obligingly rolled up his sleeves, collected the wheelbarrow and a shovel and went in search of Mr Parsons and his manure.

"He worries too much," Lestrade said when he was out of earshot. "I can understand it, though, seeing how he lost his mother last year to pneumonia. He seems to think the same will happen to me. I dare say he might have a point. I'm not getting any younger."

"He seems like a good lad."

"Oh, yes, he is. One of the best."

"All the same, Dr Wat_ford_, Lestrade?"

Lestrade grimaced. "My son – his father – didn't understand. He didn't approve either, and never had a good word to say about you or Mr Holmes. George thought the world of his father and it's not my place to disillusion him, whatever my feelings."

"I didn't realise your son felt that way. He always seemed such happy boy."

"In some ways he was, but he took things to heart too much. When he joined the Met, he went under his mother's maiden name of Lawson, because he said he was going to make it on his own merit, not because of who his father was."

Again, my conscience was pricked. I had a nagging doubt as to whether the younger Lestrade had been concerned less by any unfair advantage he thought he might have gained from his father's career than for fear of hindrance. Old sins, so they say, cast the longest of shadows, and it had never occurred to me all those years ago when I had sought only to give due credit to an intelligent young man and fellow lodger that we would reaping the consequences well into a new century.

"That must have been difficult," I said.

He shrugged lightly, as though the matter was unimportant. "He was still my flesh and blood, whatever he wanted to call himself. We had words about it, but nothing I could have said would have changed his mind. He was always a hothead, and stubborn with it. I didn't hold with him wanting to be a police officer in the first place, but he would have his way and he made it clear that I wasn't to meddle. If I had, perhaps things would have been different. As for young George, I'm glad to say he takes more after his mother, God rest her soul. He's got a kind soul and sensitive with it, but his head is up there in the clouds most of the time. It didn't help him losing his job at the bank last year. He's having a devil of a time finding another."

"A common problem, so I understand."

"I don't know why – he's a bright lad and he's got a good head on his shoulders. Good with figures, too. That's where he was today, at an interview. From the look of him, I'm assuming that it didn't go well."

"Don't you want him to join the police?"

His eyes burned beneath his grey brows. "I've already lost a son, Doctor. I'll not give them my grandson too."

I had not heard about his loss and could only berate myself for my unintentional error. Worse still was the knowledge that he had not thought to tell me before now, as though the passage of years had worn so thin that bond we had forged in that brief, thrilling period of our early lives that even news of our tragedies could not revive it.

"Forgive me," I said. "I did not know."

The tension melted away as his features softened into a smile of understanding. "No reason why you should. You were out in France at the time, with horrors enough of your own without hearing bad news from the Home Front."

"What happened?"

"It was the night of an air raid [1]. He had just got off duty and was on his way home when a shell lodged in the roof of a house he was passing and set fire to the place. Being the first man on the scene, he did what anyone else would have done in the circumstances. He got the children out, went back in for the mother, and while he was still inside the roof collapsed. They didn't stand a chance."

"He died bravely."

"Yes, he did." He sighed heavily. "All the same, it's a hard thing to outlive your children, Dr Watson, and I pray you never have to know what that's like. Far too many know what it is to lose a child, what with their sons and grandsons buried in foreign fields. At least I know where my boy is. That's a small comfort denied to many families. I have that, and I have George." A little of the old timbre had returned to his voice. "Which is why if I let him go with you, I want your word that he'll come to no harm."

"It's good of you to trust me, but I don't know if I can accept that responsibility."

"You'd be doing me a favour if you did, Doctor, believe me. I'm grateful for George's help, but this is no life for a young man. He hankers after adventure, and I'm afraid he'll find the wrong sort left to his own devices. If he goes with you, I know you'll keep him out of trouble."

He paused and gave me a long and meaningful look. "And, you never know, he might do the same for you. I'm grateful for what you're trying to do, but if anything were to happen to you on my account, I'd never forgive myself. And I certainly wouldn't want Mr Holmes haunting me the rest of my days, reproaching me for letting you get yourself into trouble."

He said it in so casual a manner, as though it was the most natural thing in the world that one would expect to be hounded by his baleful spirit, that the remark almost passed me by. When it did register, I looked back at him in surprise and alarm. Throughout our conversation, he had given no indication that he could see our spectral companion. That he made reference to him now suggested either that he had never been given his due credit as a talented actor or had just made the most perceptive observation of his life. I had hopes for the former. If see Holmes he could, at least it would settle my mind once and for all that he was not simply a figment of my imagination.

"Why would you say that?" I asked cautiously.

Lestrade chuckled. "You know what he was like, better than any of us. Could you see a thing like his being dead standing in his way with his reputation called into question? Why, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was here with us now, listening in and making those little comments of his like he used to do in the past!"

He laughed and I smiled to myself at the irony of it. Lestrade would never know how close to the truth he had come. For all the scorn Holmes had poured upon the man over the years, ultimately he had known him best of all.

"All the same," I said, deciding it was wiser to return the conversation to safer ground, "I intend only to make some gentle inquiries as to the case, Lestrade. I'm not anticipating any danger."

"If I had a penny for every man who's ever said that, I'd be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. There's nothing wrong in taking a few precautions."

"Accept."

Holmes's voice was commanding enough to make me half turn in his direction. He had set himself apart during the better part of our conversation, pretending to show some interest in the contents of Lestrade's shed, whilst growing ever more impatient at what he must have seen as unnecessary delay. Never very tolerant at the best of times, I could imagine his frustration now that he lacked the ability to bring to an end what he considered to be an irrelevant discussion with his usual curtness. That he was suggesting I accept the offer of a companion I assumed was his way of bringing the matter to a rapid resolution.

"Well, I am not sure," I said, half to Lestrade, but mostly to my spectral friend.

"It is not often that I find myself in agreement with Lestrade," Holmes stated, "but on this occasion I cannot fault his logic. There may be some risk to you, Watson. After all, someone saw fit to poison me."

"We have yet to prove that," I murmured under my breath.

"Nevertheless, where one man may be murdered with impunity, the presence of two may discourage such an act. As much as I hate to say it, Lestrade is correct also in his reasoning about the necessity of concealing your identity. 'Dr Watson' is too well known, as is his association with me. 'Dr Watford', however, may move freely, unencumbered by such limitations. Then, and most compelling of all, there is the fact that you have been imbibing parsnip wine. To continue to drive under such an influence is courting disaster."

"I am not drunk!" I retorted hotly, quite forgetting I was not alone.

"I never said you were, Doctor," said a surprised Lestrade.

"No, of course not. I was thinking aloud. But perhaps you are right, Lestrade. Does young George know how to drive?"

"Certainly he does. He had a motorcycle until he had to sell it to make ends meet. I wasn't sorry to see it go, I can tell you. You haven't got a fast car, have you?"

Holmes gave a sardonic laugh.

"No, it's quite a sedate old vehicle."

"That's just as well," said Lestrade with a sigh of relief. "George is rather too fond of fast driving for my liking. He's got it into his head that he wants to be a racing car driver ever since Malcolm Campbell drove the world land speed record a couple of months ago."

"Small chance of that in your car, Watson," Holmes remarked.

"This supposes that he will agree to accompany me," I said. "We haven't asked him yet."

"He'll be pleased to help, I'm sure," said Lestrade. "Although if you could see your way to making it worth his while, he wouldn't be ungrateful. You know what young people are, always needing money."

"Offer him ten pounds," said Holmes.

"Ten pounds?" I said, aghast.

"Oh, that's very good of you, Doctor," said Lestrade, evidently pleased at what he took to be my generosity. "He's not a wastrel, but between you and me, he's been finding it a strain, not having a regular wage and me not being able to give him much."

"Yes, times are hard. _For all of us_," I added meaningfully.

Holmes chose to ignore my remark.

"They certainly are," Lestrade went on. "He had to move in with me because he couldn't keep up with his rent. I couldn't stand by and see the boy turned out on the streets, and to tell the truth, I'm pleased of his company now that the wife – God rest her – has passed on. It would please me more to see him married and settled, but that will come in time, I dare say. He needs time to find his feet and mature a little more before he's ready to find himself a wife."

There was something about the way he said it allied with the unexpected twinkle that came to his eye that put me on my guard.

"Is there something I should know?"

"No, not at all," he said, smiling in a manner that made me wonder if I had taken on a fledgling demon. "If he does have one minor fault, it's his fascination with… well, I'll let you find out. But here he comes now. George my boy, how would you feel about helping out an old friend of mine?"

* * *

_Lestrade, what aren__'t you telling Dr Watson? Find out in Chapter Six!_

* * *

[1] The first zeppelin air raid on London was on the night of the 31st May 1915. Inadequate means of warning people and many civilian deaths in subsequent raids until September 1916 led to their being dubbed 'Babykillers'.


	6. Chapter Six

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Six**

I was soon to discover what it was that Lestrade had thought to keep from me regarding his grandson's 'minor fault'. We had been travelling on the Brighton Road heading out of London and had taken the turning for the sleepy Sussex village where Holmes had made his home. George was at the wheel and pushing my poor car to her limits, blithely unaware of the groans of protests coming from under the bonnet.

He had been happy to accept my offer; indeed, I would say he was overjoyed to escape the manure and weeds of the allotment. Despite his initial disappointment when he discovered our transport was rather less than a thoroughbred of the motoring world, he had soon made himself at home in the driver's seat and sorry I was for it, for his attitude to the business of driving was alarming.

Between his smoking, talking, gesticulating and constantly glancing over at me, how we managed to avoid a myriad of accidents was beyond me. Holmes had been sitting in the rear seat and had promptly vanished at the first irate sound of a delivery van's horn. I was left to grit my teeth, cling to the uprights for dear life and wonder why on earth I had allowed him to talk me into this perilous situation.

George's chief problem was that he talked too much, with little thought for what was coming out of his mouth. He appeared to have no natural caution, whether in speech or in relation to the welfare of his passengers and other road users, and we flew merrily along to the sounds of his constant chatter.

"You knew my grandfather before the war?" he asked, entrusting the steering wheel to his elbow while he ferreted about inside his coat for another cigarette. As the car lurched towards a ditch, he condescended to take hold a firmer hold of the wheel and somehow steered us out of harm's way.

"Please, pay attention," I said, dabbing away the beads of sweat that had come to my brow. The blank look he gave me at this reproof was as innocent as that of infant caught taking biscuits from the larder. "Yes, I've known your grandfather for many years."

"When he was at Scotland Yard?"

"Yes."

"You worked with him?"

"From time to time."

"Police work?"

"On occasion."

"Was it a lark?"

He had taken his eyes off the road yet again to stare at me in anticipation of my answer. Ahead and bearing down on us was a plodding carthorse and wagon laden with bales of straw. At my gesture of alarm, George looked back just in time. The car tyres screeched and struggled to keep contact with the road as he veered the vehicle around the obstacle to avoid a head-on collision. Only when the smell of scorched rubber faded away did I dare open my eyes again. That we had survived was something of a miracle, though the experiment had cost me five years of my life in as many seconds.

"So was it, sir?" he persisted. "Fun, I mean."

"No, I would never have called it 'fun', George. Has your grandfather never spoken to you about his work?"

He shook his head, causing the mass of gold curls about his temples to shimmer like so many gilded shreds caught in a summer's breeze. "He says it's not a subject for levity or little boys. In any case, he was only a police officer. It's the amateur detectives who have all the adventures."

I had to smile. "Really? Who told you that?"

"I thought everyone knew it. Have you never heard of Sexton Blake, Dr Watford? He's the world's greatest detective, you know."

"Is he?" I glanced at the back seat and was relieved to find it empty. "I'm afraid I must have missed that one."

"Oh, never mind that. I've got all his stories at home. You're welcome to borrow them if you like."

"No, thank you, George, all the same."

"You're not a fan of detective fiction, sir? Nor was my father. He boxed my ears when he caught me with one once. He said it was sheer twaddle. 'Small things please small minds', that's what he said. But he was wrong. I love reading detective stories. All that running about, driving fast cars and catching villains – proper adventures, not just the humdrum of going to and from the office every day. That's what I want. That's what I call real life."

"In matter of fact, I think you'll find it's fiction."

A dog chose that moment to run out in front of us. We missed it by a hair's breadth.

"Oh, do you think so? You mean to say that real detectives aren't experts in boxing, ju-jitsu and marksmanship like Mr Blake?"

"Well, I'm sure there are some who are—"

"Some who are what, Watson?" came a bored voice from behind me.

I looked over my shoulder to find that my ghostly companion had reappeared. Holmes's sense of timing had always been appalling, as I had found several times to my cost. Now he could not have chosen a worse moment to take an interest in our conversation. This left me in the awkward position of trying to distract one and keep the other away from what could be construed as controversial subjects.

"Experts in boxing and ju-jitsu," I said. "A range of skills is needed to be a detective, I should imagine."

"_Bar_itsu, Watson," Holmes corrected me imperiously. "I insist that you get it right. There are distinct differences between the two disciplines, and to confuse them implies a want of intelligence on the part of the speaker."

"I'd like to learn," said George, "but I'm not sure about being hit. I got punched in the face on the rugby field once and I didn't like it much. The doctor said it was lucky my nose wasn't broken."

"Perhaps if you had lessons," I suggested. "You can learn anything these days."

"Even how to drive, would that young George had bothered to find out," grumbled Holmes, taking a hold on the back of my seat. "Watson, I'm not sure if it is possible for a ghost to die, but I have no desire to be the first to find out. Travelling so fast along these narrow country lanes is nothing short of reckless!"

It was true that our speed had been steadily increasing. Not that George had noticed, for he seemed quite oblivious to the dangers that might be waiting around the next bend.

"It's not necessary to go quite so fast," I told him. "Slow down."

Obliging, he lifted his foot half an inch from the accelerator and we slowed to a more reasonable speed.

"I thought you wanted to get there before dark," said he unhappily.

"I do, but preferably in one piece."

"We weren't going that fast, Doctor. Not that you can in this old car anyway. Modern cars go much faster. Did you know Campbell reached 245mph at Daytona Sands?"

The rear end of several sheep appeared as we rounded the corner. George put his foot on the brake and near catapulted me from my seat.

"I suspect he did not make the attempt along country lanes such as these," I said when I had regained my seat. "In any case, I anticipate that we shall have to stay overnight. Would you be able to manage that?"

He smiled brightly and nodded. "There's nothing I need to get home for, except grandfather and he said he can manage for a couple of days without me."

"It wouldn't be that long, I promise you. Besides, I have to be home tomorrow night. I have an engagement."

"An engagement?" Holmes echoed contemptuously. "What on earth could be more important than the case, Watson, and the question of my murder?"

"Yes, an engagement," I reiterated. "One I would be reluctant to miss."

"But er…. what _exactly_ are we doing, Dr Watford?" George asked. At my look, colour rose to his cheeks. "Sorry, it's none of my business. Grandfather says I ask too many questions."

I had been expecting this – he was a Lestrade, after all – and I had had a story prepared in advance. In order to keep the promise I had made to his grandfather, I had resolved to tell him no more than was necessary. Had he known the true nature of our enterprise, given his fascination with detective fiction, no doubt he would have been greatly disappointed to learn that I was not planning to include him in my investigations. Not involving him would also enable me to keep the other part of my promise, namely of keeping him out of danger. His purpose, as I saw it, was to drive and to carry out those little tasks that at my age were wearisome to mind and body. Thus far, he had yet to perform to a satisfactory standard in either role.

However, I did have some sympathy with the lad, and it was only good manners that I did not leave him entirely in the dark concerning our purpose. I knew also that if I did not satisfy his thirst for information now, more than likely he would attempt to discover our purpose for himself

"There's nothing wrong with being inquisitive, George," I said kindly. "But since you ask, I have to make a few inquiries about a death."

His eyes widened and gleamed. I knew then that what little I had told him was already far too much.

"A _suspicious_ death, sir?"

"Not necessarily. To all intents and purposes, it may have been entirely natural."

"But it might not have been."

He was growing ever more excited by this prospect by the minute and in vain I sought to restrain his zealous tendencies. "No, George, he was an elderly man. The cause of death as stated was a heart attack."

George shook his head. "No, he must have been poisoned."

"Remarkable lad," said Holmes approvingly. "You know, Watson, I'm beginning to like young George. I'm glad I insisted you brought him along."

"We don't know that he was," I said, ignoring this remark. "People do die."

Convincing him otherwise was going to prove nigh on impossible if the enthusiasm with which he now spoke on the subject was any judge.

"No, this fellow was murdered, I'm sure of it. The fact you're making inquiries means you think so too. And why not? Mystery writers are always saying that it's easy to murder someone who's elderly because the doctors always put it down to old age. I say," said he, near starting from his seat, "do you think the doctor did it? It would make perfect sense. Doctors are always suspected because they have opportunity and means at their disposal. They can put anything down on the death certificate and no one will know any the wiser."

His smile of triumph slowly faded as he realised, perhaps for the first time, that his remark may have given offence.

"I'm sorry, Dr Watford, I didn't mean to imply that you—"

"We don't all harbour homicidal tendencies, George," I said, easing his discomfort. "But I do take your meaning. A friend of mine once said that when a doctor goes wrong, he is the first of criminals."

"You left out the most important part," murmured Holmes. "Why – because he has nerve and he has knowledge. Still, at least you managed to quote me correctly for once."

I did not have time to respond to this slight, for George's eyes had taken on that predatory gleam of the hunter and I dreaded to think what plan was fermenting in his brain.

"So the doctor is our suspect. Are we going to dig up the body and test it for some rare alkaloid?"

"No, the person in question was cremated. In any case, what you suggest is illegal."

"Highly suspicious. That's what people do when they know they have something to hide."

"Again, George, I cannot agree with you. It was the deceased's wish."

"But what if the doctor knew that and poisoned this old man because he knew it would never be discovered?"

"Did he know?"

I made it sound as though I was musing over the possibility. George did not know that the person for whom it was intended was close at hand and in the process of confirming my worst fears.

"Yes, he knew," said Holmes. "I had discussed it with him. As you know, the certification of a second doctor is required before a body can be cremated."

"Which rules out the possibility of murder," I said under my breath.

"Not if the second doctor was old, trusting and unquestioning. If, as I suspect, Dr Jones from the neighbouring village was the second doctor, his automatic response to any death tends to be to attribute it to natural causes, even when it is obvious that the deceased was trampled by a herd of stampeding cattle."

"That still leaves the question of motive," I said aloud.

"I bet he had a pot of gold and the doctor stood to inherit," George spoke up. "Greed is one of the principle motives for murder. Sexton Blake always says that."

"_Who_ always says that?" demanded Holmes, his tone suddenly as glacial as the chill emanating from the rear seat.

Up ahead, the farmer was clearing a path through the flock to enable us to proceed. Before the situation became fraught, I made a tactful suggestion that we move on. George engaged the gears and continued talking.

"I've learned everything I know about crime from reading," he enthused, blithely unaware of the animosity he was causing. "Order and method, that's the recipe for success. If you want to be a great detective, you have to use your 'little grey cells'."

The engine coughed, spluttered and died. We came to halt in the midst of the flock, surrounded by bleating ewes and the bitter smell of sheep dip. Exactly as I had feared, one thoughtless comment too many had brought out Holmes's less tolerant tendencies.

"I'll go and see what's wrong with her," said George, stepping out and becoming knee-deep in milling sheep. "I expect it's the water."

I waited until George had the bonnet up and was blowing on his burned fingers after an incautious examination of the radiator cap before turning to my brooding friend.

"Did you stall my car?"

Holmes had settled himself in his seat and was calmly recharging his pipe as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

"What if I did?" said he unconcernedly.

"It's very childish of you."

"An interesting choice of word, but hardly applicable under the circumstances. On the one hand, it suggests endearing traits characteristic of children, as in innocence or simple charm—"

"There is nothing innocent or charming about your taking against the lad like this."

"Then you meant it in the derogatory sense, implying immaturity or foolish behaviour. Well, if it is foolish for a man to take umbrage because his life's work is valued as nothing compared to that of Baker Street imitators and moustachioed Belgians, then the charge must stand."

"You exaggerate, Holmes. You can hardly blame the boy for not knowing about you."

"Although he appears to know about everyone else. I am not a vain man, Watson—"

"Are you not? Then why have you become so heated over so trifling a conversation?"

"Trifling?" said he indignantly. "I fancy you might not be treating the matter so lightly had it been your career in question. But then you are only a writer, a species that stands apart and allows others to live while they observe, and imperfectly at that. To be a writer is to be a mere commentator, an intellectual eunuch devoid of—"

"Before you say something that both of us will have cause to regret, Holmes, may I remind you that it was you who insisted on having George along."

"That was before I knew we were welcoming a viper into our bosom. Lestrade has done this on purpose, mark my words. That man's ability to hold a grudge knows no bounds."

"I cannot agree with you there. He is no viper, and it is ungenerous of you to say such a thing. He is an admirable young man."

"Untroubled by an excess of wits."

"He is good-hearted and well-meaning."

"And a terrible driver."

"But most importantly of all," I said, "he is Lestrade's grandson. The least you can do is to be civil."

George chose that moment to let out an involuntary howl as a sheep placed its full weight on his toe. He stepped back, toppled over a round woollen body and disappeared under the heaving mass. He was up again just as quickly, attempting to brush away the clinging traces of straw and mud from his jacket, but only succeeding in spreading them further and engraining black smears into the fabric of his trousers.

"I must confess that any hopes I had for the success of this venture are fading fast," Holmes said with a sigh. "The odds are not in our favour. I am dead, you are old and we have been saddled with a halfwit with a penchant for cheap sensationalist literature. This is not the stuff of which great investigations are made."

"Then we shall have to do the best we can. Tell me, Holmes, would your doctor have cause to murder you?"

"The facts fit, but I would not have thought Dr Arbuthnot was the type. He enjoys cricket, has a dog called Rex and prefers pheasant to partridge."

"Why does that not make him a likely murderer?"

"Do you remember Dr Mortimer? Of course you do. Dr Arbuthnot is much the same. He is unambitious in the extreme. Since moving to the country over thirty years ago, he has never ventured anywhere near a town with a population of more than ten thousand people. He has a horror of crowds, you understand. The affliction became pronounced after his practice failed in London. Rumour has it that he ran down Harley Street tearing off his clothes and declaring that everyone hated him."

"Good Lord."

"For that reason, I rule out financial gain as a motive, besides which he did not benefit from my will."

"Does he have any connection with the Swinson family?" I asked. "That would be a sounder motive."

"That, my dear fellow, is what you will have to find out."

"Very well. You will have to start the car first."

"So soon? I was quite enjoying myself."

His gaze turned to where George was still bent over the engine. His lack of progress was marked by the long streak of grease daubed across one of his cheeks and the hair that was hanging lankly in his eyes. Holmes shook his head at the sight, and with a sigh of the deepest resignation grudgingly gave in. As George touched the plug housing, the car rumbled and hummed into life. The boy's face beamed with pleasure at what he perceived to be his success.

"If we left him here, do you think he could find his own way home?" Holmes muttered.

"Give the boy a chance. We were all young once. You may not be the only detective in the world, but I guarantee you will live on long after all the others have been forgotten."

"Live on!" he said with a rueful snort. "How cruel you are, my friend, that you would use such words to one's whose days of life have passed. In the end, does it matter, I wonder? What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!"

"Cicero?"

"No, Edmund Burke. My store of quotes is not solely confined to the classics, Watson."

George hoisted himself into the car and dropped an oily rag on my lap, much to my chagrin. "There, Sexton Blake couldn't have done better himself."

"I'll wager he could," a voice grumbled behind me.

"Well, are you ready, Dr Watford? We can't hang about here all day. We've a murderer to catch!"

* * *

_Did the doctor do it? Will Dr Watson find himself in trouble? Will Holmes finally lose patience with George? Coming soon in Chapter Seven!_

* * *

A/N: You can probably guess who George meant by the Belgian detective with the 'little grey cells'. Less well known today is Sexton Blake, known as the 'office boy's Sherlock Holmes', also as 'the world's greatest detective', who first appeared in print in 1893 and had a long career in film, television and periodicals. He had offices at the north end of Baker Street, had an assistant called Tinker, a landlady, smoked a briar pipe and wore a dressing gown when working at home. Touches like these may have annoyed the Holmesian ghost, but they delighted millions of fans!


	7. Chapter Seven

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Seven**

By the time we reached our destination, I was hot, Holmes was bothered and George was unstoppable.

Had anyone told me that it was possible for someone to talk for so long about such trivial subjects as to whether Bulldog Drummond was a better detective than Sam Spade and why Philip Trent's initial appearance in print was called _Trent's Last Case_ when surely it should have been his first, I am sure that I should not have believed them. George appeared to spend his time either reading detective stories or going to the cinema to watch his heroes in the talkies. If unsuccessful he had been at finding employment, I had to wonder if it was because he was too busy living out his dreams to tie himself down to anything as mundane as a job.

He was also labouring under the impression that he was to be Tinker to my Sexton Blake, a remark tantamount to provocation of the worst kind that I imagined must have set Holmes's teeth on edge. Quite what annoyed him most, however, I could not say with any degree of certainty. None of the names George mentioned were new to him, and I knew from previous discussions that he was not ignorant of the activities of his competitors, even on one occasion during my rare visits taking me quite by surprise in asserting that he had deduced who had killed Roger Ackroyd before ever he had turned the first page.

What I had not encountered before was this level of resentment and bitterness. Had it been anyone else, I should have called it rank jealousy. When applied to one whose mantra had always been that all emotions were abhorrent to his nature, it seemed curiously inapt, but then Holmes, or rather this manifestation claiming to be him, seemed different too.

I should have called him out of sorts, if such a diagnosis may be accurately applied to a ghost. Vulnerable was the word that came to mind, a word that I should have never applied to the living Holmes, nor would have dared ever suggest such a thing in his presence. It was as though death had stripped him of that carefully-cultivated reserve he habitually wore against the knocks and blows of everyday life. We all need our armour, and to find that Holmes's was wearing thin enough in places to allow the man beneath to show through was disturbing.

For a man who had always been sure, even when he was wrong, to hear now that he could not even say for certain whether his death had been natural or not was both troubling and a cause for sorrow. In a world of change, all men need something permanent, timeless and enduring on which to rely. Some choose places and return as if on yearly pilgrimage to reassure themselves that whatever else might change, there is comfort in knowing that a familiar view, a well-remembered rock or a sturdy oak exist still to brood and watch and retain their secrets.

Searching for the same qualities in people is fraught with disappointment. One would like to believe that the people we have known all our lives possess that same immutability. Familiarity blinds us to their greying hair and creeping infirmity. It is the death of our parents that teaches us that hard lesson that all must change, as all must die. The only exception, so I had thought, was Holmes.

Foolish as it may seem, he had seemed to me impervious to such petty considerations. In my mind's eye, he is forever enshrined in that cramped sitting room on the first floor at Baker Street, his eyes half-closed, a dressing draped around him and his old clay pipe clamped between his teeth. It is a memory primarily of the senses, whether in the aroma of old tobacco, the crackle of a hearty fire or the warm glow produced by brandy on a cold night when the fog wreathed the streets outside and muted the lamps into little more than bleeding patches of yellow light.

No matter how long my absence, I could always be sure that my return would be welcomed and I would be presented yet again with that assumption of my assistance veiled out of courtesy as a question. That I could spare the time to join him in the investigation of another case was never in doubt, as I never doubted that he would always be there.

On the day he no longer was, my happy delusion ended. Worse still was the day I knew I would never receive another of his terse telegrams pointing out my defects as an author in the last of my literary efforts or to sit in his garden listening to the contented hum of the bees and the distant coo of the woodpigeon.

Looking at him now, a sullen preoccupied phantom, I had to wonder again if I had not conjured him up as a means of assuaging my sense of loss. If he was, as I feared, a manifestation of my doing, then this humour of his was nothing more than a reflection of my mood made flesh, spectrally at least. Was this frustration at the passing of time really mine, given release through an incarnation of one who to me represented dependability and in the end had proved as mortal as the rest of mankind?

If so, my memory had been kind. The grey had left his hair and his cheek was smooth. The rheumatism that had robbed him of the comfort of music in his later years no longer marred those long, restless fingers. In clothes, he looked hopeless old-fashioned – positively Victorian, as the young people nowadays are fond of saying of their elders. But it was how I remembered him, and fondly, and at times with regret too, for days that would not come again.

"When are we going to question the doctor?" asked George, his evident relish for the task that lay ahead shaking me from my reverie.

I did not care for the 'we' part of that question and resolved to put him right about the situation before there was any misunderstanding.

"_I_ am going to question the doctor," I said firmly. "You, meanwhile, are going to find us room at the nearest inn."

"The Red Lion," Holmes spoke up without much enthusiasm. "The beer leaves something to be desired, being both warm and cloudy, but the landlord's wife takes pride in her work and the rooms are clean and the beds are soft and comfortable. Or so I have been told," he added quickly when I glanced back at him.

"Very well," I said. "The Red Lion it is."

"You've been here before?" George asked.

As it happened, I had visited Holmes on several occasions, but had never passed through the village. After the War and the death of his brother, he had become obsessive about his privacy. The old farm on the Downs had been sold and another purchased in a place where no one knew him other than by his assumed name of Escott. I was permitted to call only under the strictest of conditions, namely that I approach his cottage from the leeside, away from the curious eyes of the locals, and only on days when the cleaning woman was occupied elsewhere. It had seemed excessive to me and I had told him so, only to be blamed for popularising his name amongst the clamouring masses rather than in the exhorted circles of learned specialists. After that stinging retort, I had never broached the subject again.

George, however, who knew neither one of us, had made the assumption of my familiarity with the area based on my knowing the name of the local hostelry. One in a thousand might have drawn such an implication from my innocent remark, and to give the lad his due it was evident that he had inherited his grandsire's perspicacity. He had the makings of a good detective. Because of that, I would have to be careful what I said in the future.

"No, this is my first visit," I lied.

"Then how did you know—"

"I made inquiries before I left. One should always know the location of a decent hostelry when travelling, George."

This appeared to satisfy him, although his disappointment about being excluded from the interview was plainly visible.

"Are you sure you don't need any help?" he asked plaintively.

"The offer is kind, but I feel you would be better employed in inquiring whether we're too late to get something to eat. It was a long drive and I'm sure you must be hungry."

"I'm ravenous," he agreed. Considering the energy he had expended in talking, I was not in the least surprised by this. "There is one thing, Dr Watford." He looked slightly abashed. "Money? I hurried out so quickly that I forgot to bring any with me."

"Don't you worry about that, George. Go ahead and order what you like."

"What about you, sir?"

"Start without me. I won't be long."

I climbed out of the motor and sent him on his way to see to our sleeping arrangements for the night. As he drove away, scattering scolding chickens in his wake, Holmes materialised beside me, his form becoming ever more solid until the clouds of dust no longer rose through his middle and the drifting feathers of the startled fowl disappeared behind the crease of his trousers.

"Was that wise?" said he archly. "I'll wager that boy has a healthy appetite. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he orders one of everything from the kitchen. If he does, the bill will be substantial."

"Kind of you to be so concerned about the state of my finances," I retorted. "Although it comes a trifle late, considering how free you are with other people's money."

"Are you referring to the ten pounds I told you to give George? I was perhaps over-generous, but that was before I knew we had unwittingly taken a plague upon both our houses. Well, the deed is done, and I dare say that the lad means well. If the state of his shoes is anything to go by, then I would venture that he is in greater need of ten pounds than you."

"I am glad you think so, Holmes. However—"

He looked at me sharply. "Oh, Watson, not stocks and shares surely?"

I nodded. He stifled a sigh.

"One would have thought you had learned your lesson from the turf back in the days when half your wound pension regularly went into the pocket of Honest Henry, the bookmaker. But to have speculated on the stock market…." He shook his head. "The news from Wall Street was dire. How much did you lose?"

"Enough. I have had to tighten my belt somewhat to make ends meet."

"Well, you shall not be out of pocket on my behalf. Sell my violin."

I stared at him, shocked. "Holmes, I could not do that."

"Of course you could. What you mean is that you won't. Believe me, my dear fellow, I would not be offended in the slightest if you did. Possessions have ceased to hold any importance for me."

"No, Holmes, you misunderstand me. I cannot sell your violin, firstly because I would not, secondly because I do not have it."

"Do not—Watson, do you mean to say that my violin is not in your possession?"

I nodded.

"But I expressly left instructions with my solicitor that it was to go to you."

"I never received it."

"Confound it!" he ejaculated. "Not only murdered, but robbed as well! Is there no end to these indignities?"

"Holmes, you do not know that. It might simply have been overlooked."

"One does not overlook a Stradivarius."

"Someone did once, or else you should not have come by it in the manner you did."

"Very well, I concede the possibility. Rather that than the thought that some unfeeling fellow chopped it up and used it for firewood."

I smiled at his indignation. "I thought possessions had ceased to be important to you."

"So they have." He flashed me a smile in return. "Therefore, its fate is irrelevant. It does not solve your problem, however."

"I am not reduced to penury, Holmes."

"Do not speak too soon. George may be orchestrating your downfall in the Red Lion's kitchens at this very minute."

"As long as it keeps him busy."

"I can almost guarantee it, Watson, although not in the sense you mean. The Red Lion had something of a rat problem. Even the cats were scared of the vermin."

I rounded on him. "And this is where you propose we spend the night?"

"You will have to, my dear fellow. There is nowhere else, unless you are willing to endure the attentions of old Mrs Fanshawe at Rose Cottage. She has a room in the attic that she lets in the summer to unsuspecting young hikers. She too is ravenous, although in her case it is less for food than company. Needless to say, I have never known anyone stay there longer than one night." A half-smile lifted the corners of his mouth. "I would have thought you were slightly too old for Mrs Fanshawe's tastes, but then one never knows. It was a hard winter and the hiking season is still some months off."

"I'll take my chances with the rats," I said. "Now, about this doctor of yours. What was his name again?"

"Arbuthnot."

"The fellow who liked his game birds and ran down Harley Street tearing his clothes off."

"Yes."

"Was he a good doctor, would you say?"

Holmes's answer was a long time in coming. "That depends on how you define 'good'. Are we speaking in terms of his successes or his failures? There is a difference."

"Does he lose many patients?"

"About average, I should say, for a village of this size and with an ageing population. I suppose by that definition, one might call him an 'average' doctor. Average losses, average successes."

Holmes, when the mood was upon him, could be a most tiresome pedant that ever drew breath, which made progress in a discussion nigh on impossible. Long experience had also taught me to be wary of these moods, for it invariably meant that he was trying to steer my interest away from a topic he would rather not discuss.

"There is more to a doctor than his patients, Holmes," I persisted.

"Interesting that you should take that view," he observed. "Surely patients are a doctor's _raison d'être_. Without them, he is merely a highly-educated conversationalist."

"In that case, would you say that _I_ was a good doctor?"

He took his time and gave me a cool, appraising stare, in a move calculated either to insult or unnerve me. Finally, he seemed to give up the effort and looked away as though he had lost interest.

"I would have said that you were an exceptional doctor," he remarked, "but then who am to judge? I am not an impartial observer. You might say there is a conflict of interest in this instance."

"Be that as it may, how would you compare Dr Arbuthnot with me?"

"He is shorter."

"Holmes..."

"I do not know what you expect me to say. He had some success with Mr Henderson's bunions, but did nothing for Mrs Grimshaw's sciatica. On the other hand, they still talk of how he saved Mr Atkins's prize sow."

"He operated on a pig?"

"In such a small place, one must be jack of all trades. Whether the good doctor was master of none remains to be seen." He took his hunter from his pocket and consulted it. "Surgery hours are over, but if things have not changed too much in the course of twelve months, then Dr Arbuthnot should still be in residence. He was in the habit of keeping a bottle of rubbing alcohol in his desk for emergencies, although his taste was more in the way of brandy. Either way, I believe we shall find him mellow enough for questioning."

He started away, leaving neither footprints in his wake nor causing pebbles to stir at his passing. That this elegant, erudite phantom was keeping something from me was evident; whether in truth _I _was keeping something from myself was another matter. All the time a little voice kept whispering in my ear that this was madness, not least because Holmes was the last person in the word to acknowledge that he had been wrong by coming back to haunt me. 'No ghosts need apply', he had once declared, and yet he _had_ applied and to me, the one person he trusted to help him. Real or imagined, I could not refuse him.

Still, I had to wonder how my daughter would manage if her poor father was carted off to the nearest institution for the terminally confused. My questioning of Dr Arbuthnot would have to be discreet indeed if I were to avoid that particular fate.

* * *

_What happened to Holmes's violin? Will George eat his way through the menu at the Red Lion? What will Dr Arbuthnot have to say for himself? Coming soon in Chapter Eight!_


	8. Chapter Eight

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Eight**

As Holmes had predicted, Arbuthnot was in his surgery when we called. The door was answered by an elderly lady with dishpan hands, curlers in her hair and a ringing wet apron. I took her to be his housekeeper, a fact confirmed by her proprietorial stance in the doorway and the look of suspicion in her eye.

Yes, she informed us, the doctor was at home, though at this time of night – a strange expression, I thought, when the sun had not yet left the sky – I would be better trying my luck at Hampton Deverall a few miles down the road, where Dr Massey kept the cottage hospital. Her eyes rolled when I said that my business was Dr Arbuthnot and no other. Admitting us, she wished me well of him and bustled back to her kitchen.

I knocked at the surgery door, but the only sound from within was the staccato rattle of a drunken snore. As invitations went, it was not encouraging. Undeterred, I turned the knob and entered.

The consulting room was comfortable, eccentrically-equipped and provincial. Quinine nestled beside a patented horse tonic for colic. A stuffed trout thickly layered in dust turned its glassy eyes towards a contemplation of a jar containing a length of pickled intestine. A former jam jar had been pressed into service as a vessel for several bent syringes, hopefully their last stop before being consigned to the dustbin. And finally, and most bizarrely of all, adorning the windowsill was a series of chamber pots, several missing their handles, all chipped and stained, and each sporting a straggling, fly-infested geranium.

It was not the sight I would have chosen with which to greet my patients, but then I was not Dr Arbuthnot. A man of about fifty run to fat, his face red, broken-veined and greasy, he sat or rather was slumped in a chair behind his desk, his feet up and his eyes closed. He emitted a gentle grunt every now and then, ending with a snort and that terse smacking of the lips as inebriated sleepers often do as if perpetually chewing on a piece of toughened meat.

Of greater concern was the strong smell of embrocated spirits about the place. Still clasped loosely in his hand was an empty glass containing a fluid white residue. Closer inspection of the contents satisfied me that the doctor had taken nothing more sinister than milk of magnesia. The half-filled bottle from where he had obtained his supply was on the shelf behind him, clumsily stoppered and showing a fresh dribble of liquid around the neck.

I considered the sleeping man. Dr Arbuthnot clearly had troubles, and I was about to add to them. Whether a troubled conscience was among them, I could not say for certain, but I was determined to find out.

I shook him. He began to stir.

"No more plum duff, confound you!" he muttered, emerging bleary eyed from sleep. "I'm fit to burst I tell you, you unspeakable harridan."

His gaze came to rest on me and he squinted as his eyes focused on my face.

"You're not Mrs Mackintosh," he stated.

"No."

"Then who the devil are you? Surgery's shut. Take your business elsewhere."

He tried to get up, forgot that his legs were still elevated and tumbled to the floor. I helped him back into his chair, only to be rudely thrust away.

"I'll not have interruptions while I'm…" He shut a drawer, not before I had caught a glimpse of a brandy bottle. "While I'm working," he said uncertainly. "If you've come from Mr Cuckpowder, tell him he has to put it in a bucket of water to take the heat of it."

I had no idea to what he was referring, although the treatment sounded unconventional to say the least.

"Put what in a bucket of water?"

"His horse's leg, confound you! The damnable beast is limping again, so he said." He blinked and squinted up at me again. "Who did you say you were?"

"Dr Watford," I said, deciding that one alias was quite enough to remember.

"Doctor, eh?" said Arbuthnot smiling foolishly. "Your parents must have had a sense of humour to give you that name. If you'd joined the medical profession, I suppose they would have called you Dr Doctor." He chuckled at his own joke. "You would have been two doctors."

"No, I am a doctor."

"Are you really? What a coincidence. So I am. But why have you come to me? Can't you tell what's wrong with you?"

I supposed that calling up the long-suffering Mrs Mackintosh for a strong coffee to sober the man was out of the question.

"Dr Arbuthnot, I'm here to ask you about one of your patients."

"No," he slurred. "Can't do that. It's confid… comfit… it's a secret," he compromised, placing a finger to his lips and grinning inanely. "But don't tell anyone." His eyes glazed over. "Is it my birthday?"

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," I said sternly. "Dr Arbuthnot, I have been sent by the General Medical Council to inquire about one of your patients. This behaviour does not create a good impression."

It was a calculated lie, and I had intended it to intimidate the man into co-operation. My best effort was wasted on Arbuthnot, however. In his drunken state, I could have told him that I was the King and he would have believed me.

"You had a patient," I pressed. "A Mr Escott."

"Ah, yes," said the doctor vaguely. "He died. He wanted to be cremated, you know. Up he went to heaven in a puff of smoke."

I glanced over at Holmes to see his reaction to this indelicate statement. He had not moved far from the door and was standing as if turned to stone, every line of his body rigid and his face bearing what I can only describe as an expression of creeping horror.

"Holmes, what is it?" I said, returning to his side. Arbuthnot had fallen back into a drunken stupor the moment I left him, so I had no fear of being overheard. "Holmes," I tried again and a little louder when he did not respond. "What's the matter?"

He turned to me with the look of one who has been startled from a deep, troubled sleep. "I cannot say for certain," he replied haltingly. "There is something about this place, something ineffable." He forced an unconvincing smile. "You may laugh, Watson, but I believe I have experienced what people have described as a feeling as though someone had walked over their grave."

"Is it him?" I asked, nodding to the unconscious doctor. "Are ghosts meant to feel uneasy in the presence of their murderers?"

"You have a delightfully medieval mind, Watson. You'll be telling me next that should he place a hand on my corpse that my blood would rise up to accuse him."

"If I'm right, it might give sway to your theory."

Holmes scoffed. "You are attempting to tell me my trade, Doctor, about which you have already shown yourself to be wholly ignorant. Would you tell the butcher how to fillet beef or the baker how to knead dough? Then do not presume to tell me how I am supposed to react. The truth is that I do not know what is causing my sense of disquiet."

"Isn't there someone you could ask?"

"Who do you suggest?"

"Another ghost?"

"And where am I to find one of those? The Tower of London perhaps? From what I've heard, the spectral inhabitants outnumber the mortal ones in that venerable establishment."

"Well, it is a thought. They have greater experience than you do."

"Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone whose head is tucked underneath their arm? They can never hear what you're saying and they always mumble. It is a trying exercise, full of wearisome repetition, and the results unequal to the effort expended."

"What about the local graveyard?"

"Certainly not," Holmes said with distaste. "One should not muddy one's own doorstep. I knew some of the people buried there and aliases carry no weight in the afterlife. I will not have it said that Sherlock Holmes was overcome with an excess of emotion, either living or dead. No, whatever the cause, the solution is obvious. I shall remove myself from its locality. I shall wait for you outside."

So saying, he dematerialised. My instinct was that I had hit upon the truth, not that Holmes would have put much faith in my impression. But speculation, as he had once told me, was 'the scientific use of the imagination' and from what I had seen of his reaction, I was forced to speculate that he had responded to some lingering unconscious memory of an unkind deed, perhaps the unkindest of all. Since Holmes would not or could not acknowledge it, the only person who could tell me the truth was Dr Arbuthnot.

I found some smelling salts and wafted it under his nose. His head jerked back and he tried to push my hand away. I responded with several sharp slaps to his cheek. Grudgingly, he opened one eye and then the other to glare up at me.

"What the devil do you want now? Can't a man be left in peace?" he grumbled.

"Mr Escott," I said. "How did he die?"

He screwed up his face. "Heart attack. What's it to you?"

His eyelids were falling again. Another slap woke him up.

"Who confirmed the cause of death?"

"Damn fool wanted to be cremated. Do you know how much paperwork that involves? I had to get a fellow up from Brighton to confirm the death certificate."

Holmes had mentioned another name as being the likely candidate called in to certify his death, as was the requirement where the deceased had requested cremation. "Would this person be old Dr Jones?"

"Dr Gywn Jones?" Arbuthnot spluttered. "He's eighty if he's a day, and deaf as a boot. No, it had to be some kind of specialist. I didn't know him. But he agreed it was the old fellow's heart."

"Had he a history of heart problems?"

"Who?"

"Escott, Dr Arbuthnot. Try to concentrate. This is important."

"Escott," he mused, rolling the name around his tongue like a hard-boiled sweet. Then his small eyes widened and he near started from his chair. "I need a drink," he said, delving into his drawer for the brandy bottle. Much to my disapproval, he poured himself a drink and downed it in one.

"I remember him now," he said. Strangely, the effects of the drink appeared to have sobered him. Either that or some unhappy association with the name had caused this transformation. "Our graveyard wasn't good enough for him," he went on. "He was always a queer fish was Escott. Kept himself to himself. And would never take any advice, especially where his health was concerned."

"Yes, that sounds about right."

"So what's your interest? He's been dead and gone for a year. No one said anything at the time. It was all done according to the book. I confirmed the death and it was certified by an independent expert. I have his report on file."

"May I see it?"

He downed another brandy. "Do you have written authority?"

"Do I need it?"

"To see my patients' records, yes, you do. If not, you can leave, Dr whatever your name is. And you can tell that lot at the General Medical Council to mind their own business too. I have not always been as you see me now. I was a good doctor. I had a practice in Harley Street." He staggered to his feet. "Now, get out or I'll have Mrs Mackintosh throw you out."

I saw that I would get nowhere whilst the drink was upon him. I took my leave and on my way out met the housekeeper by the door. She did not look in the least surprised when I explained what had transpired.

"He's often like that, is he?" I asked.

"More so this past year," was her flat reply.

"Do you know why?"

"If it's an official matter," said she, ignoring my question, "you'll have to speak to Miss Wills. She deals with that side of things, a touch too efficiently if you ask me, for someone who's no better than she ought to be."

"When will Miss Wills be here?"

"Tomorrow morning."

With that, she shut the door in my face and I heard the key turn in the lock. There was nothing else for it but to abandon my investigation for the night and hope I had better luck with the efficient Miss Wills in the morning.

I found Holmes waiting for me by the garden gate, so deep in thought that the ash had dropped several times from his cigarette onto his shoe and he had not brushed it away. I had to call his name twice before he came back to his senses and even then he seemed more distracted than ever.

"Did you learn anything?" he asked.

"Not as much as I would have wished, although I'm fast coming to the conclusion that you may be right about the manner of your…"

"Murder?"

"I was going to say death, but I do not rule out murder. That doctor knows more than he's saying. He became very belligerent when I asked to see your medical file. He's been drinking heavily this past year too, a sure sign that something's preying on his mind."

I could have said the same for my spectral companion, who appeared to have heard not one word of what I had been saying.

"Holmes, is there anything you haven't told me?"

He favoured me with a measured look. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Arbuthnot said your cause of death was verified by a specialist from Brighton, not a local doctor as you believed. Furthermore, he said you had a history of heart problems. Was there any truth in that statement?"

"Of course it wasn't true," said he tersely. "I have never had a day's illness in my life."

"Well…"

"Never," he stated emphatically.

"Then how do you account for the Brighton man's findings?"

"He wasn't looking for signs of foul play, so naturally he agreed with what Arbuthnot told him."

"I would hope that isn't the case. There is such a thing as medical ethics, you know."

"And I would hope that we have been for friends long enough that you would not have cause to doubt me, Watson."

There was enough of a sense of reproof in his tone to prick my conscience. So censured, I gave up the unequal task. One way or another, I would somehow obtain the specialist's report and discover for myself if he had been less than conscientious about his task.

"Shall we find George before he eats me out of house and home?" I suggested. "It's getting late and I'm tired."

"Now you mention it, so I am," said he, stifling a yawn.

"I thought ghosts were impervious to exhaustion."

"Again you reveal how little you know about my condition. I do not have an inexhaustible supply of energy at my disposal. The demands of maintaining my physical shape are draining. If you don't mind, I'll rest for a few hours. Do you think you can manage young George alone?"

"I can but try. But what of you? How does a ghost take his rest?"

"By vanishing, Watson," said he, as his form began to fade into grey and his voice took on an echoing quality. "Until later, my dear fellow. We may have been stymied over the question of my death, but there is still the Swinson case. Turn your mind to that… if your dinner companion will allow it."

* * *

_So, what do we think of Dr Arbuthnot? Will George let Dr Watson have any dinner? And will rat-atouille be on the menu at the Red Lion (sorry, that's a terrible pun, but I couldn't resist it!)? Find out in Chapter Nine!_


	9. Chapter Nine

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Nine**

The Red Lion was a typical country inn, that is to say it was replete with dark wood panelling, smoke-stained beams, threadbare carpets and several sullen locals in cloth caps and working clothes propping up the bar. My appearance brought about the usual sudden silence and a dozen baleful eyes turned in my general direction.

I have learnt from long experience that this is not an experience peculiar to me, but to all strangers entering an unfamiliar inn. Speaking for myself, the embarrassment of being the centre of attention has long since faded, although by now I would have wished to have been able to emulate Holmes's example of meeting hostility with a winning affability that diffuses the situation in less time than it takes the barman to pull a pint.

Such hearty ebullience does not come easily to me when confronted with awkward circumstances. Invariably my attempts at amiability fail to melt the icy reception and only succeed in hardening it into chilling contempt, with the result that I am left feeling foolish and smiling so broadly that my expression verges on imbecility. That level of discomfort, I assume, is the effect desired, with the intention of wrong-footing outsiders before they take it into their heads to make a nuisance of themselves.

Not that I had any intention of causing trouble, although the locals at the Red Lion were of the type that never trust anything to chance. In their view, an elderly gentleman with the dust of travel clinging to his shoes and rings of tiredness under his eyes was just as likely as potential troublemaker as any who had crossed the threshold. So it was that my procession from the door to the bar was conducted under their constant scrutiny and only when I addressed my inquiries to the landlord did their postures relax.

"Would you be talking 'bout that young fella what came in that car out yonder?" said the landlord, a stout man of middle years, red of face and eye with a smattering of greying hair adhering in a fringe around his cranium.

"Yes, I would. Is he here?"

He shared a private joke with the locals and the gathering laughed.

"Oh, he's here all right," said he. "It's a good thing you've turned up, because he said you'd pay for the damages."

"Damages?"

"Aye, damages." He worked spittle into his mouth and spat it onto the beer glass he was polishing. Frothy, tobacco-streaked dribbles evaded his grimy cloth and ran down inside the glass to congeal at the bottom. "If you be asking me," he went on, "he shouldn't be allowed on the road, driving like that. If he were my son, I'd give him what for and no mistaking." He squared his jaw. "But then I suppose you being his father and all, you turn a blind eye."

"His what?" I said aghast.

"Well, there's no harm done, excepting to my geese. You'll have to pay for the one he ran over, mind."

I reeled from one revelation to the next, scarce able to marshal my thoughts. I had not realised when I had taken George on that taking responsibility for him meant shouldering his debts as well. I consoled myself with the thought that it could have been worse.

Agreeing to pay for the deceased goose, I inquired whether he had managed to complete the task I had given him in finding us rooms for the night.

"Aye. The wife is up there now turning down the beds. Young fella is in the snug yonder. He said you'd be wanting dinner. She'll have it ready shortly."

I nodded my thanks and went in search of George. Laughter followed me out of the bar and the voices resumed their distant murmur of conversation. I found him seated at a table in a dark corner, a spoon encrusted with thick mustard-yellow custard in his hand and a bowl of something that looked like mildewed bread and burnt raisins before him. His cheeks were bulging as I took a seat opposite him and it took a moment or two of concerted chewing before he could speak.

"How did it go with the doctor?" he wanted to know. "Did he confess to the murder?"

"No, George. I couldn't get much sense out of him. He was drunk."

He scraped his spoon around the side of the bowl, putting my teeth on edge as he did so. "That's a guilty conscience," he opined. "It's a sure sign. Nick Carter always says—"

"I'm sure he does," I said, holding up my hand to interrupt him, "but I'm not in the mood to hear it right now."

He considered me with as thoughtful an expression as a man may assume when his chin is dappled with custard and he has the remains of a raisins stuck in his front teeth.

"You've still got your suspicions though, haven't you, about the doctor, I mean?"

I took time to frame my reply. "He has given me grounds for doubt, certainly."

George nodded, as though this had come as no surprise to him, that encounters with lying doctors and talk of murdered patients were part of his everyday routine. "You should have threatened him with your gat," said he, taking up his glass of cloudy beer and taking a long swig. "That's what they do in detective novels."

"I'm afraid I don't have a cat. I used to have a dog once, but—"

"No, Doctor, a _gat_, not a cat. It's slang for a gun. All detectives carry guns."

"Well, this isn't a detective novel and I don't have a gun. At least, I don't have one with me," I added, wondering if my leaving my trusty old revolver at home was such a good idea after all.

George's eyes lit with that light of barely-suppressed exultation which I had learned was the herald of trouble. "So you _have_ got a gun," said he. "Are you a good shot?"

"Fair," I replied, shrugging off my coat.

"Have you ever shot a dog?"

Something about the way he said it caused me to look at him. "Why would you ask that?"

"Oh, no reason," he said, filling his mouth with another helping of pudding. "It's just that dogs are always chasing detectives and…"

"I'm not a detective, George. I'm a doctor. But, since you ask, I have shot a dog or two, but only because they presented a danger."

He was silent for a long time and, when I glanced over at him, I caught him watching me closely. That he had more questions was evident, but I was tired and preoccupied from my earlier meeting with Arbuthnot and did not feel up to the task of humouring the lad's interest.

"You've eaten?" I said, hoping to turn his attention away from talk of detectives and dogs and drunken doctors.

"No, the landlord's wife said our meal should be ready in about half an hour."

"But isn't that your dessert?"

He stared at the remains of his bread and butter pudding and shook his head. "I was hungry so Mrs Parsons, the landlord's wife, gave me this to be going along with."

"I see. What is for dinner?"

"Goose."

I hesitated. "Would this be the same goose that you ran over in the yard?"

George nodded. "Sorry about that, Dr Watford. It ran straight out in front of me. I tried to avoid it but it ended up under the wheels."

"And from there onto our dinner plates. Ah, well, never mind. At least it's fresh."

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something large, brown and furry scuttle across the floor. I hoped I was imagining things, brought on by Holmes's tales of rats so big that the cats were afraid of them. He had not been exaggerating about the state of the beer, however. The liquid in the glass that the landlord finally condescended to bring to our table was the colour and consistency of weak gravy. Where it had slopped from the glass onto the table, it lay in great opaque globules, a slick of colour rolling about its surface as one might expect to find on a puddle of oil.

"It tastes better than it looks," said George, seeing my expression. "Mrs Parsons said her mother swears by it."

"Does she?"

"Yes, sir. Apparently, she washes her hair in it."

I stared into the murky glass and fancied I saw a stray hair floating about within.

"I can only hope," I said resignedly, "that they were good enough to let us try this particular sample _before_ Mrs Parson's mother got her hands on it."

A thirsty man will do many things that normally he would not consider, even drinking the Red Lion's cloudy beer as recommended by the landlady's mother for the washing of her hair. To be fair, it was not without flavour, slightly tart to my mind, and it could have done with being a trifle colder. Perhaps I am grown fussy in my dotage, however, for George quaffed several glasses without complaint and offered to finish mine as well.

In its favour, it helped to wash down the goose, which when it finally arrived was dry, unusually so for goose, and tasted of burnt feathers. The greens had been boiled to nothing and the mashed potato was lumpy and unctuous, the whole swimming in a sea of sparkling grease. I ate all I could and then left George to devour another helping of bread and butter pudding while I retired for the night.

If the food disappointed, then the room did not. Spacious and not over-cluttered with furniture, it had that old-world charm that in our modern age seems to be slowly fading into nothing more than quaint historical pastiche. It is not that I am averse to change, for there is much to be said for indoor conveniences and a plentiful supply of hot water that comes at the turn of a tap and does not depend on the swiftness of a servant conveying numerous pitchers to the tub.

But it takes a room like the one I had been given at the Red Lion, with its low slung beams, uneven floor and four-poster bed, to remind us of how far we have come and how much we have left behind. In my time, I have lived to see the talk of how men might fly become a reality. What would the countless generations before me who had breathed and loved and slept beneath this same carved tester and faded embroidered curtains have made of that? Probably the same as what I should say if I fell asleep tonight and woke up a hundred years hence in 2031, when, so we are led to believe, machines will have been invented to do everything for us, even our thinking. What that portends for the fate of mankind I should not like to say.

I should have liked to have slept, but I was mindful that I had not fully acquainted myself with the notes Holmes had kept of the Swinson case. The file with its collection of cuttings and assorted ephemera was not bulky and looked as though it might claim an hour or so of my time. Plumping up the pillows behind me, I settled down to my reading and soon lost myself in the yellowing newspaper reports of some thirty years previous.

So engrossed was I that I did not immediately register that I was not alone. When I did acknowledge the sensation it was to find that Holmes had re-materialised and was standing by the window, looking out over the silent cottages with their gables and thatched roofs nestling beneath the chill glow of the stars set against the black velvet heavens. The land slumbered, surrendering the night to those who would not or could not sleep. If I was the former, then Holmes most certainly was the latter, insomniacs both, one by choice and the other by dint of his peculiar situation.

"Are you aware, Watson," said he, acknowledging my calling of his name by half-turning from his window-side position, "that there is blood on the radiator of your car?"

"Yes, I know," I replied. "George had an accident."

"I feared as much. Who was it?"

"A goose. I've had to pay for it."

He nodded in silent understanding. "You dined well?" he inquired, wandering over my bedside.

"We had goose."

Holmes smiled. "Mr Parsons was never one to let food, good or otherwise, go to waste. How was our young companion?"

"Garrulous."

"And the meal?"

"Greasy."

"A disagreeable combination. However, I see that it has not diminished your enthusiasm for the case. Those are my notes, are they not?"

"They are indeed."

"And what have you learned?"

I removed my spectacles and rubbed my tired eyes. "That your handwriting leaves much to be desired. I'm having a devil of a job reading this."

"Coming from a member of a profession where an illegible hand is considered essential to keep the patient in a state of confusion, I find that accusation unwarranted."

"Well, you tell me what it says," I retorted, holding the page out to him.

He perched on the foot of the bed and studied the sheet with a furrowed brow. "It looks like 'Little Seaton'. Yes, I'm sure that's what it says. As I recall, the deceased aunt had her home there."

"Exactly. Since we cannot go to Scotland Yard to ask where Swinson's sister and daughter are now, I'm hoping that if we return to the scene of the murder, someone might know what became of them."

I had a map to hand and soon located the place. In relation to where we were at present, a worrying thought presented itself.

"Holmes, Little Seaton is only thirty miles away."

"And London is but fifty. What do you infer from that?"

"That the Swinsons – sister or daughter – could have driven here, poisoned you and returned home in a day. Failing that, either of them could be known to Dr Arbuthnot, who may or may not have colluded in your murder."

He chuckled mirthlessly. "There is too much conjecture and too few facts in that theory of yours for my liking. No, you will have to do better than that, my dear fellow."

I threw down the map in exasperation. "Will you at least concede it as a possibility?"

"Is your continued assistance conditional upon that point? If so, I concede it."

"And don't humour me either, Holmes. I find it patronising."

"My," said he, smiling at me from the end of the bed, "you are out of sorts."

"That is because I am tired. I haven't had a chance to put my feet up, like some people I could mention. Where have you been, by the way?"

"I took a turn about the village," said he, his gaze turning to the window and the black outline of church and steeple beyond. "Revisiting my former haunts you might say."

"I thought you said you had to rest."

"So I did. Then came dusk and my energy was restored."

"It seems like a very strange arrangement to me," I remarked.

He regarded me coolly and I gathered that I had erred yet again. "In matter of fact it is supremely logical. Infinite power leaves scope for infinite abuses. Imagine, for instance, the ghost of Moriarty having access to such uncapped reserves."

"He hasn't, has he?" I asked with concern.

"No, I believe he is otherwise engaged. As for me, I must cut my cloth according to my needs. I shall have to learn to pace myself if I am to continue to be active throughout the hours of daylight. There is a limit to how much one can achieve after dusk."

"Why dusk?"

"The beginning of a new day, Watson. Our ancestors had it right when they calculated the day's end from the waning of the sun. Why do you imagine that so many ghosts are abroad at night?"

"Since you put it like that, it does make sense, I suppose."

"Of course it does. Now, you should get your rest, for I perceive that your eyelids are drooping, old friend, and if we are to go over to Little Seaton tomorrow and endure another day of George and his merry banter, you shall need all your wits about you."

There was wisdom in that suggestion and I could not deny that the day had been a weary one. Whilst I gathered up the scattering of papers and thumped the pillows into a serviceable state of comfort, Holmes withdrew and settled himself by the fireside in an antiquated armchair. The subdued flames cast no glow upon his austere face and, despite the dancing shadows and splashes of colour that played upon all they touched, he remained deathly-white – as pale as a ghost in fact, I thought as I drew the sheets up around my chin.

I closed my eyes, but sleep would not come. I tossed and turned for several minutes until finally I addressed the source of my problem.

"Do you intend to sit there all night?" I asked.

Holmes glanced over at me. "Does it bother you? We have shared a room before now."

"Yes, we have. What I mean to say is, is this to be another of your all-night sittings?"

He gave this due consideration. "I have a number of things on my mind, it is true. However, I shall not disturb you. Unless you would prefer that I went? Does my being here trouble you?"

"No, not at all."

"Good, then I shall stay, because I have nowhere else to go."

I sat up, aware that there had been more in that remark than a mere statement of fact. "Do you mean that?"

"I would not have said it if I did not mean it," he replied tersely. "I have the whole world at my disposal and yet I find that there is nowhere I would rather be than sitting here in this chair with my pipe at hand and you asleep in that bed."

"Can't you go back… to wherever it is you came from?"

"If I did, I would not be able to return to you. My ticket is for a one-way journey only." He turned and faced me, his gaze challenging in its intensity. "Would you have me go?"

"No, Holmes, of course not. It just seems a little strange, that's all, me going to sleep and leaving you sitting there all night alone."

"You have done so before, Watson. I seem to remember a house in Lee and that particular little problem you entitled 'The Man with the Twisted Lip'." He chuckled. "The truth was slow in coming to me that night. I believe I declared somewhat hastily that I was one of the most absolute fools in Europe."

"I recall. I also remember you smoking near an ounce of tobacco. You don't intend the same feat tonight? To that I would object."

"You have become testy since you gave up smoking," said he with a tight sigh of annoyance as he extinguished his pipe. "A little indulgence on my part would have never bothered you in the old days."

"Well, it bothers me now. It was hard enough giving up without you wafting temptation in my direction."

"Why did you? I never understood your reasoning."

"Because it was making my chest bad. And I have Alice to consider."

"Alice?" asked Holmes, as if the name had come as a revelation to him.

"Yes, you do remember that I have a grand-daughter by that name?"

"I had not forgotten. I fail to see how you make the connection between the two."

"She has expressed a desire to become a doctor. I want to be there to see her get her place at medical school, if that is her wish."

"Alice is only five," Holmes reminded me.

"Six, actually."

"Do you realise that by the time she graduates, you will be ninety-four. Do you believe that you have another twelve years in you?"

"Do I?" I asked sharply. "Surely you should be telling me that. Or are you?"

Holmes shrugged and reclined back into his chair. "I have told you that I am not privy to such information. I do not pretend to predict the future. Given your family history, however, one would say that the odds are not in your favour."

"You cannot include my brother."

"No, but your father died of a stroke when he was fifty-seven, so you told me."

"So he did. In any case, I have already outlived him. The odds are not so bad. My maternal grandfather lived well into his nineties."

"Then let us hope that you are able to emulate his excellent example." He propped up his legs on the chair opposite and turned his gaze to the fire. "Go to sleep, Watson. It has been a long day."

"And when I wake up in the morning, everything will look different?"

"If is does," Holmes murmured, "then you can be sure that you are in the wrong place."

I settled down again, pulling up the blankets and trying to empty my mind of our conversation. It was perhaps a forlorn hope to imagine that I would be able to keep my promise to the child. Time was not on my side. I had to wonder too if Holmes _did_ know, despite his protestations to the contrary and was trying to break the grim news of my impending demise to me kindly. I tortured myself with this thought for a long time before I gave up the effort. I would have no peace until I knew for certain one way or another.

I dragged myself from the sheets and tried to focus my tired eyes on the place Holmes had been last when I closed my eyes. He was still there, but now he was sat bolt upright, as straight as a lance, and fairly quivering with exultation. In the dark of the room, his eyes were gimlet bright, as hard and clear as the diamond points of the stars in the night sky.

"Holmes, what is it?" I asked.

"Hush!" he hissed, leaping from his chair and covering the distance between us in a few long strides. "Keep your voice down, Watson. We have a visitor!"

* * *

_Oooh-er! Who'__s coming to pay Dr Watson a midnight visit? Find out in Chapter Ten!_


	10. Chapter Ten

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Ten**

At his words, my heart started to pound in my chest. In the ensuing silence, I sat with straining ears, waiting for the faintest sound to betray the newcomer's presence. Beside me, Holmes was expectant, like a spaniel pulling at the leash, his eyes bright, his breathing coming quick and fast, and his whole being vibrating with that keenness of old.

At that moment, he seemed more real than ever, as if he had been animated into life by the intensity of the situation. So tangible did he seem that I had strong urge to reach out and touch him, certain this time that he was a creature of flesh and blood. I resisted, however. The illusion was too perfect to spoil.

Instead we sat, side by side as of old, united against a common foe, waiting and listening. As the seconds slid by, I heard nothing, save my own hard breathing and the distant chiming of a clock somewhere in the bowels of the inn. The hours tolled – one, two, three – and the sound gave way to the plaintive cry of a wandering fox in the lane outside. Whoever this visitor was, he had either the stealth of cat or was copying us in waiting to see if his presence had been detected.

"Holmes," I whispered finally. "Who are we waiting for?"

He waved me into silence with an impatient gesture.

"Should I arm myself? Are we in any danger?"

Holmes chuckled quietly. "Bear your soul in patience, my dear fellow."

"I knew I should have brought my revolver," I muttered under my breath.

"It would have done you little good if you had. But look!"

My gaze turned instinctively to the door, but Holmes's sharp intake of breath made me look to where he was indicating. By the opposite wall, a dark shape was emerging from the gloom of the shadows and the dark panelling. It was the figure of a man, his head bowed beneath a shabby hat. He shuffled towards us, making no sound as he came, matted hair swinging lankly about his down-turned face. In one hand, he held a lantern that cast an unearthly glow about itself and the wandering phantom.

"Good heavens!" I said, forgetting myself.

"Lower your voice," Holmes breathed.

"But, Holmes, a ghost…?"

"Did I forget to mention that the Red Lion is haunted?"

"Yes, you did. What does he want at this time of night?"

"He's haunting."

"Naturally. _Why_ is he doing it here?"

Holmes considered. "He lived here once, no doubt, met with an unhappy end and has returned to wander and remember and continue the habits of his former existence."

The ghost was passing the end of the bed, oblivious to either of us. From the style of his apparel, I should have said that he haled from the middle of the last century. He walked with the slow deliberate step of an old hand, a fellow who has through years of experience learnt that there is nothing to be gained by haste or the wasteful expenditure of energy in futile fits of exuberance. There is much to be learnt from such quiet fortitude, by man and ghost alike.

"Why don't you ask him," I suggested in a whisper, "about what happened to you earlier?"

"_Nothing_ happened to me earlier," Holmes retorted archly. "It was… nothing, Watson."

"It looked like an attack of the collywobbles to me, Holmes."

He glanced at me with a look of impatience. "Is that a medical opinion, Doctor?"

"No, it's the concern of a friend. All I'm saying is that now he's here, you may as well ask him."

Still he hesitated. "I was never one for social niceties, as well you know," he admitted grudgingly. "Once one begins a conversation, one is obliged to continue it. In any case, we have no common ground. What should we talk about? The weather?"

"Or your shared… _condition_."

"Old Mr Haverhill at 223B used to take _The Times_, Watson, but I did not go out of my way to talk to him simply because we read the same newspaper."

"Haverhill," I mused. "Wasn't he the one who threatened to throttle you with your own violin strings after you kept him up all night in the winter of '84?"

"Yes, philistine that he was," Holmes muttered darkly. "The man had no appreciation for music. He may have taken _The Times_, but that was where his liberalism ended." He sighed with annoyed resignation. "Nevertheless, I concede there is something in what you say. When one is an amateur in one's field, one must look to the expert, and this fellow has some years on me."

The shuffling phantom had progressed halfway to the door and seemed intent on leaving when Holmes cleared his throat and addressed him in a loud and clear voice.

"Good evening," said he. "May we be of some assistance?"

I do not know if it is possible to scare a ghost to death, but at Holmes's words our spectral visitor suddenly presented all the signs of someone on the verge of a seizure. He reeled, clutching at his chest and wheezing as though the breath had been sucked from his body. After dropping his lantern, which rolled under his feet and near tripped him over, he groped his way towards us, hands held out before him. For a while, he held onto the upright of the bedpost as if for dear life, breathing hard, and giving us accusing glances.

"What did you want to be doing that for, scaring me like that?" said he, panting from his exertions. "Who are you anyway?"

"Sherlock Holmes. This is my friend and associate, Dr Watson. And you are?"

"Hezekiah Hopgood at your service," said he, tipping his hat. "Once landlord of this fine inn and now with the dear departed." He nodded to Holmes. "Here, you're one of us, aren't you? What are you doing here?"

Holmes visibly stiffened at this mention of their affinity. "It's a personal matter."

"Not looking for a place to stay?" said the ghost suspiciously. "Only there's no room for you here. This upper floor is mine and the laughing cavalier has the run of the downstairs. Don't go looking out in the garden either because Mad Meg won't take too kindly to you being there and you'll set her off screaming again."

"Who's Mad Meg?" I queried, somewhat puzzled.

"They call her the grey nun, but if you ask me she's been wandering and wailing for so long that it's turned her mind." Hopgood squinted at me. "You can this see this here gentleman, can you, sir?" he asked.

"Why, yes."

He looked from one to the other of us. "Oh, it's like that, is it? A _personal_ haunting. This fellow done you mischief in life, did he, Mr Holmes, and you've pledged to hound his every waking moment?"

"No," said Holmes. "Far from it. We are working on a case."

"A case of what?"

"A case of probable murder. Mine, in fact."

Hopgood sucked in his breath through his teeth. "Now, sir, you don't want to be doing that. Didn't the powers that be tell you about the rules? Didn't they warn you about meddling?"

"Yes, which is why Dr Watson is assisting me."

"Well, that's nice, that is," said Hopgood, his mood lifting as he beamed at me. It was a wide gap-toothed grin, warm and genuine in its sincerity. "That's what a call a real friend, always ready to help even when you're pushing up the daisies. It's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor, I'm sure. May I take this opportunity to welcome you to the Red Lion and hope that your stay here will be a comfortable one."

"Well, thank you," I said to the genial spirit. "Most kind of you."

"Sorry to have disturbed you, but I like to do the rounds at night. I'm so used to finding folk asleep at this time of night that I don't notice if they're awake any more. Not that I like to make a fuss, but I'm not happy in my mind until I've checked that the place is locked up and the fire's been put out properly."

"What do you do if it isn't?"

"Oh, then I make a rumpus, sir. I open and close the doors, rattle door knobs, make the floor boards squeak, that sort of thing. Why, on one occasion I even managed a few moans out in the corridor. What a night that was!"

"Sounds jolly."

"Well, you have to amuse yourself as best you can. It's a long night otherwise. I was just off to rearrange the glasses in the kitchen and scare the cat, horrible mangy thing that it is. Always hissing at me, sharp-toothed little devil. You watch out for cats, sir," said Hopgood, addressing his remark to Holmes. "Dogs are not so bad. Mostly they'll growl and bark, but cats, I've got no time for them."

"I'll try to remember that," said Holmes.

Any appetite he had had for questioning our visitor had waned during the course of our conversation, and I noticed that he had become strangely reticent. I had the strongest sense that he wanted to be rid of Hopgood, which considering their shared interest, I thought impolite, even for a man of Holmes's disposition.

But if he did not have questions, I did. "Pardon me for asking, but _why_ are you here?"

"You mean apart from checking that the present owners don't burn the place down?" My interest evidently pleased him, for he removed his hat and settled himself on the side of the bed. "Ah, well, now, that's a long story. Now, back in 1851 it was that I shuffled off my mortal coat."

"Coil," Holmes corrected him.

"I remember the date well," he went on blithely, "because I was reading an account in the newspaper at the time about that exhibition what were being held up in Hyde Park and I was saying to my girl that I had a mind to take myself to London and see what all the fuss were about. The next thing I knew I'd gone headfirst down the stairs. Well, sir, I can't tell you the particulars – there's rules about them sort of things, as your friend will tell you – but a little while later, I had a mind to come back and see how my girl was managing. What with me and wife gone and she unwed and mistress of this here establishment, I was concerned that she might fall foul of some uncouth fellow eager to get his feet under the table and find a comfortable living for himself, if you take my meaning. Are you a father, sir?"

"I have a daughter."

"They're a blessing, aren't they?" he said with a smile. "Then you'll know what I mean. I'd only intended to look in, see that all was well and head on back to my eternal rest. But, when I got here, I found that Thomas Hawkins what got six months for stealing making love to my girl and acting like he's the master of this place. I was beside myself I was and, well, I did something I oughtn't, not that I regret it, mind."

"What did you do?"

"I manifested myself," said Hopgood with a touch of pride. "Out there at the top of the stairs. My thought was to scare him off for good. How was I to know that he had a weak heart? He dropped down dead right in front of me. There was hell to pay because of that, I can tell you. They said I'd meddled and broken the rules. Well, they don't look kindly on that sort of thing, so here I am, earthbound, condemned to wander for a certain period until I've served my time."

"How long?" I asked.

Hopgood shrugged. "Who's to say, sir? Truth is, I only stay here because I've nowhere else to go. And the others are all right, I dare say, even Mad Meg as long as you don't talk politics." He nodded to Holmes. "This is our night for whist if you'd like to come and join us. Old Harry in the bar—"

"The laughing cavalier?"

"That's him. He had a run-in with Cromwell. Or was that run through? Whatever the case, he's not a man to hold a grudge. A right merry old soul he is." He leaned a little closer as if to share a confidence. "Truth be told, Old Harry prefers a game of darts to cards these days. Took to it like a duck to water after the new landlord put up the dart board, and for a man without a head, that's saying something. So, sir, might we count you in for whist?"

Holmes looked appalled at the prospect. "Thank you all the same, Mr Hopgood, but I fear I must decline."

"Suit yourself. You'll be leaving in the morning, I take it? Don't think me inhospitable, but we have to be careful about taking in waifs after what happened last time. We had…" He lowered his voice. "One of _those_ sorts come to stay a few years back. You know, them types what like to throw things around."

"A poltergeist?" Holmes suggested.

"I don't know what her name was, sir," said Hopgood, grimacing at the memory. "Let's just say she gave us a few sleepless nights, if you'll pardon the expression, sir. We were all right before she came. We had our routine and we stuck to it. Nothing fancy, to be sure, but it suited us. Then _madam_ turns up, telling us that what we need is excitement. I ask you, at our time of life, and Mad Meg pushing 702 this autumn! Well, we got excitement, that's for sure. Night after night, throwing things around she was, moving the tables and chairs, breaking the glasses – it's no way to run a business. The next thing we know there's talk of the old bell, book and candle."

I shook my head, mystified as to what he meant.

"An exorcism, Watson," Holmes informed me.

"And that means eviction, sir," said Hopgood, shuddering. "It's no way to treat the elderly. I ask you, where's a headless man like Old Harry to go in this day and age? No, we had to tell that noisy one to leave. Things quietened down after that. There's been no more talk of exorcisms here since then." He smiled hopefully at me. "You won't say anything to the landlord, will you, sir? Only we don't want any more trouble."

"I won't say a word," I promised.

His troubles faded from his brow. "Thank you for that, sir. Well, I best be getting along. Time is pressing."

"Yes, don't let us keep you," said Holmes.

"Good luck with your 'case'," said Hopgood, gathering up his hat and lantern. "Oh, I wouldn't normally ask, but when you get back to the other side, would you mind telling Mrs Hopgood why I didn't come home for dinner? You'd better tell her not to wait up for me either. For all I know, I could still be serving my time here for another 80 years. Well, good night to you, sirs."

Touching his hat, he backed away and vanished through the door. The lantern was the last of him to disappear, robbing the room of its spectral glow as it was swallowed up by the darkness of the wood and the night.

"Whist indeed," said Holmes, rising from the bed and returning to the fireside. "The very idea! It was a foolish idea of yours, Watson, engaging the fellow in conversation. What have we learned?"

"That on no account must you meddle."

Holmes shot me a dull look and slumped listlessly into his chair. "There is little danger of that. If the investigation continues at this pace, George will be in his dotage before you make any progress."

"Oh, I do apologise," I said, repelled by his unappreciative attitude. "I am doing my best, Holmes. It isn't easy, you know, trying to hold a conversation with a ghost when other people are present. I have my reputation to consider."

"What of my reputation?" he countered. "Sherlock Holmes, robbed and murdered in his own home – it beggars belief. What faith can one have in a consulting detective who can't even solve the mystery of his own death?"

"We do not know that for certain."

"Indeed. All that we know is that we know nothing."

There was no reasoning with him when he was in this frame of mind. Our conversation with the late Mr Hopgood, far from proving of use to him, appeared to have brought on one of his darker, less forgiving moods. He paced to and fro before the fire, ill at ease and more distracted than ever. His restlessness was making me feel tired just watching him.

"I don't know what you plan to do," I said, plumping up my pillows, "but I'm going to sleep. There's still a few hours left till morning and I intend to make the most of them."

"I shall stay here," he said stubbornly.

"As you please. I still think it's a pity you didn't question Mr Hopgood about your funny turn in the doctor's house earlier."

"'Funny turn'," I heard Holmes mutter disparagingly. "You make me sound like a maiden aunt suffering from an attack of the vapours."

"Well, now we'll never know. A shame, really. It might have helped us in our investigation."

I let the thought hang while I settled down and pulled the blankets up to my chin.

"Perhaps," said Holmes at last, "I might wander down and see what Hopgood has to say on the subject."

I smiled to myself. "I think he said he was playing whist in the bar if you're looking for him."

"Whist! I dare say it isn't the worst thing I've ever had to do in the course of my career, but it comes close."

"Why don't you pretend that you're in disguise as someone who actually enjoys social gatherings?"

I opened my eyes in time to see him pause at the door. He looked back at me, a pained expression on his face. "I could be persuaded to stay," said he. "This is an absurd notion, after all."

"No more absurd than my sitting up half the night in conversation with two ghosts."

He smiled, the half light rearranging the shadows of his face into dark hollows interspersed with touches of moonlit luminescence.

"Good night, Holmes," I said, closing my eyes.

"Good night, Watson. Sleep well, my friend."

"And then in the morning perhaps you can tell me."

"Yes?"

"How a ghost without a head manages to play whist when he can't see his cards."

His distant laughter was the last sound I heard before I drifted into blessed sleep.

* * *

_**Get your rest, Dr Watson. Something tells me tomorrow is going to be a busy day for you. And it**__**'s coming in Chapter Eleven!**_


	11. Chapter Eleven

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Eleven**

I slept after Holmes departed and revisited a place where I had not been for many years. It always started the same, with a feeling of dread, of walking endless miles over an unfamiliar landscape, knowing that however fast I ran, I would not make it in time. My final destination varied: for a long time, it had been to the edge of a precipice with the tumbling, fermenting waters of the Falls crashing into the depths below me. Then gradually, as a new tragedy replaced the old, it had been to a bedside and a golden vision of a woman who had passed beyond sleep to the realm of eternal dreams.

This night it changed again, this time to sun-drenched countryside, heavy with the scent of early-flowering lilac and languid as late spring gave way to summer. I was warm, though not uncomfortably so, and mostly from my exertions than the heat of the day. There was somewhere I had to be, that was the one thought in my mind. I pressed on, down lanes lined with hedgerows as tall as a man, so that I was hemmed in on either side by thick, green, impenetrable walls of birch and bramble and strangling ivy.

Onwards I went, knowing that time was against me, until finally a homestead came into view, set in a sea of green without another dwelling or living soul in sight. The gate was open and down the gravel path I went to the green door of the house. It stood slightly ajar, giving a glimpse into a spartan interior, smelling honey-sweet and flavoured by the clumps of lavender growing by the path around which the bees hummed contentedly. I entered, already knowing what I would find. The chair by the fire, a book dropped to the floor, a figure slumped against the cushions, a man who had died alone.

Except he was not alone. There was someone else, someone leaning over him, doing what I could not see. In my turmoil, I called to him, demanded that he give an explanation of himself. He straightened slowly, as one who has trouble with his back and is mindful of old injuries.

"We've been expecting you," he said.

He turned. I staggered back, horrified at seeing my face replicated in his. He was not me, or if he was, then he was a composite of those dark facets of the soul that we all harbour, drawn from the recesses in which we store our resentments, our loathings, our bitterness, our pain and our malice. He took a step towards me, this hateful vision, and on his hands I saw the blood still wet and glistening, dripping from his fingertips to form letters: L E S. And then the corpse in the chair opened his eyes, his gaze imploring, his mouth gaping like that of fish stranded on the shore, and calling my name over and over.

Mercifully, at that point, I awoke. Sunlight streamed through the bare patches in the curtains, throwing pale patterns onto the carpet. A glance at my watch told me it was half past seven. I had had little sleep, but with dreams of that calibre it was enough. I had been left disturbed and it was a long time before I could check my hands. They were dry and clean, unsullied by the blood of friends and colleagues. Whether I could say the same for my conscience was another matter.

What did not stop with my wakefulness was the voice that continued insistently to call my name. With it came a hammering at the door that convinced me I was not still dreaming. Shrugging on my dressing gown, I went to see what had caused a disturbance at such an early hour.

Outside on the landing, the landlord, Mr Parsons, somewhat dishevelled and with his shirt tails hanging out of his trousers, was apologetic for getting me out of bed, but as he informed me, an incident had taken place in the night and a doctor was required.

"Isn't Dr Arbuthnot available?" I said to this.

"'Fraid not, sir," said Parsons. "You see, it's him what's had the accident."

"An accident, you say? What happened?"

Parsons scratched at his unshaven chin. "I couldn't rightly say, Dr Watford. All I know is that Mrs Mackintosh, his housekeeper, came knocking about five minutes ago and said that the doctor had had a fall and would I wake you."

I thought to ask how she knew I was at the Red Lion, but dismissed it on the grounds that there was not much that was not noticed or went unremarked in such a small village. The more observant villagers would have known where I was staying before I did.

"Very well," I said. "I'll be down as soon as I'm dressed."

"Do you want me to wake that son of yours?"

It was too early for the weary task of correcting the man as to his erroneous assumption. I told the landlord to let George sleep, closed the door and began to hunt around for my clothes.

"Holmes?" I said out loud. "Are you there?"

There was no answering reply or sudden chill or stirring of the curtains to herald his returning presence. I gathered he was still with his ghostly compatriots, conferring in the bar over whist and darts. The image that brought to mind was an amusing one, for although Holmes possessed that admirable quality of being able to make the most of any situation in which he might find himself, there were certain places where he was most as ease. In the snug of the Red Lion with a jolly headless cavalier, a grey nun given to hysterical fits and the inn's deceased landlord was most definitely not one of those places.

As if in answer to my thoughts, Holmes's voice cut through my reverie. "What do you find so amusing at this early hour?" he asked, materialising by the door.

"You, as a matter of fact. Did you enjoy your evening?"

I fancied I saw the trace of a scowl on his face. "It was profitless waste of time," said he. "You should have seen them, Watson. A more pathetic gathering it has never been my misfortune to encounter. Filling their nights with idle pursuits and their days in repose to what end? They achieve nothing."

"Who said that they have to achieve anything?"

"_I_ say," Holmes declared. "I have purpose. Would that the same could be said of them."

"Talking of your purpose, there's been a development in the night. Dr Arbuthnot has had an accident."

He moved from darkness to light as irritation was replaced with renewed interest. "Fatal?"

"No, I believe not."

"You know my opinion on the nature of coincidence, Watson. Now we must ask ourselves did he fall or was he pushed? Fool that I am!" he said with passion. "I should have stayed close by and witnessed his actions after your departure. Instead I was forced to absent myself on the grounds of diminished ability." He sighed, the force of it betraying the depths of his annoyance. "Have they asked for your assistance? It was to be expected. However, I am not sure that your attendance is advisable."

"On what grounds?"

"This assault on Dr Arbuthnot proves that something is afoot. It may be that you have been recognised, Watson, possibly by the same person who penetrated my alias. They feared what Dr Arbuthnot might tell you and so have tried to dispose of him. My concern is that they may try the same tactics on you."

"Your concern is noted and appreciated," I replied. "But I fail to see what danger attends my treating Dr Arbuthnot. This person isn't likely to try anything in broad daylight."

"At least take young George with you."

It was a good suggestion, but for one significant drawback. "My ears took a hard enough beating yesterday. Let the boy sleep. We can manage. That is if you _are _coming?"

Holmes looked mildly offended that I should imagine otherwise.

"After what happened to you the last time you were at Dr Arbuthnot's house, I had to ask. Did you question Mr Hopgood and his associates about your... _lapse_?"

"That is an accurate a word as any for it," said Holmes. "According to Hopgood, I suffered an emotional response to something in the doctor's house."

"How very disturbing for you."

"Yes, I had quite forgotten how unpleasant a doctor's consulting room could be."

"Actually, I meant your having 'an emotional response'."

"I have never been immune to the condition, Doctor," said he icily. "One learns to rationalise one's feelings, however. The technique is not too difficult to learn. All things viewed in detachment – whether hunger, fear, cold or any other associated response – must be stripped down to their essentials. For example, one is hungry, therefore one must eat. Failing that, the information must be set aside until such time as one is at liberty to indulge."

"It wasn't hunger that drove you from Arbuthnot's house. You seemed quite perturbed."

"By the nature of the response, not the emotion itself. Do you remember that patient of yours who lost his sense of smell?"

"Quite clearly. I never discovered the cause."

"Nor why it came back just as mysteriously. I seem to recall you telling me that he had said he would have been happier had it stayed away, for the world smelled a lot less sweeter than he remembered. I find I have some sympathy with the man. To experience a strong emotion again after so long a time was, I fear, disquieting. Its intensity was..." He searched for the word. "Overwhelming."

"And it has been a long time since you were _overwhelmed_."

"Not to such an extent. If memory serves, I became somewhat heated when you were shot in the case of Killer Evans. I even made several highly extravagant claims as to what I would have done had Evans killed you."

"If you call that 'somewhat heated'," I said, gathering up my coat, "I should hate to ever see you in the grip of some uncontrollable passion."

"You would wait a long time," he declared, "for it will never happen now."

"Not even if you get me shot again?" I said, smiling, with my hand on the doorknob.

"Once a lifetime is enough for any man," said Holmes, leading the way through the now open door. "In any case, I have never understood why it is necessary to become irrational to prove that one cares. Or why it should be necessary to prove it at all."

It was typical of Holmes to wait until he was dead to come out with such a statement, as much as it had taken a blood-letting on my part to show that my years of faithful service had counted for something over and above the duties of biographer and whipping boy combined. At such a moment, rare as it was, it was best to let it lie in quiet gratitude and docket it away for those occasions when the rougher edge of his temperament was at the fore. Questioning him would only break the spell, and this was all the more welcome because it had not been preceded by an injury on my part.

In companionable silence, we made our way to Dr Arbuthnot's home and surgery, to find Mrs Mackintosh waiting for us, or in fact me, the only visible member of our party. For all his assurances, Holmes hesitated before crossing the threshold and thereafter his sense of restlessness was palpable. Arbuthnot was on the upstairs landing, lying at the bottom of stepladder beneath a hatch that gave access to the loft. The hatch was still open and the fresh chill breeze of morning was blowing steadily down on the unconscious man.

"Do you think you could close that?" I suggested to the housekeeper. "It is rather draughty here."

"Would've done if I could've reached it," said she.

"So you don't know what the doctor went up there to get?"

Her dour expression barely faltered. "I didn't ask and he didn't say. It's not my business to pry. He might have had a woman up there for all I know. More than likely, it was a bottle."

"Why don't you have a look?" I murmured to Holmes under my breath. "This business with the ladder might have been nothing more than an elaborate ruse."

"What was that?" asked the housekeeper.

"A fuse," I replied. "I was wondering if Dr Arbuthnot had gone up to change one."

"I doubt that," said she. "The doctor can't abide heights. He gets dizzy just standing up, though if you ask me, if he did less _imbibing _he might be able to do a bit more _abiding_."

It was not for me to comment on my patient's personal preferences, although it was evident from the smell of alcohol still lingering on the man's breath that drink had played a part in his current calamity. Mrs Mackintosh had taken the trouble to make him comfortable by placing a pillow under his head and a blanket over his middle and legs. Other than that, he was much as he had been when discovered, and from what I could see, it did not lend any great weight to our theory that his fall had not been an accident.

Firstly, his position married with that of a man who had taken a fall from a ladder with the resulting injuries. He was unconscious, and I suspected a concussion in addition to the broken collar bone and fractured left radius that I could feel beneath his skin. Secondly, why go to the trouble to erect a ladder and fabricate a fall when there was a serviceable stair not three feet away? Thirdly, if the intention had been to kill him, why not finish the job?

By the time I had done what I could for Arbuthnot and put through a call to the cottage hospital at Hampton Deverall to inquire if the ambulance was on its way, Holmes had completed his inspection of the loft and had joined me downstairs, having taken great pains to examine each of the stair treads on the way down.

"Did you find anything?" I asked when Mrs Mackintosh was safely out of earshot in her kitchen.

"Cobwebs and spiders," said he disconsolately. "Much like our theories about Dr Arbuthnot's accident, the investigation has fallen on stony ground. There is nothing to tell me whether the doctor had a visitor after you left last night. All I can say with any certainty is that Arbuthnot was coming down, not going up, for there were definite traces of dust on his shoes."

"He had completed his business in the loft?"

"Or had come down to collect something to take up with him."

"So, he might have removed something, hidden it somewhere in the house and then gone back to shut the loft hatch, only to fall and knock himself unconscious."

"A reasonable supposition."

"What was it?"

He regarded me archly. "Despite your many claims as to my talents, Watson, mind-reading has never been one of them."

"What I mean to say was didn't the nature of items up there give you any indication as to what the mystery object might have been? Were there no files? Yours perhaps?" Holmes shook his head. "No shapes left in the dust where something had once stood?"

"I was able to follow Arbuthnot's footprints to a large packing case, which showed signs of recent disturbance. The contents were singularly uninteresting. Several bonnets, dresses, three or four purses--"

"Women's clothing?"

"His mother's, I should say, from the style. It tells us nothing, other than that what was in the case or was about to be placed there is absent. Well, there is nothing for it other than to wait until Arbuthnot is in a fit state to be questioned. I suggest we proceed with your suggestion of locating the surviving members of Swinson's family."

"While I am here," I said firmly, "I would like to try to find your file. I still want to see the report of the second doctor who confirmed your death. And while Dr Arbuthnot is out of the way, this seems like the ideal opportunity. It would save me the trouble of a trip to Brighton. Now, where would he have put them?"

"May I help you?"

I was stooped over a bulging, paper-stuffed cabinet trying to work out how to prise open the lock when a girlish voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned to find a blonde young woman, not much above twenty, striking rather than pretty, petite and plainly dressed in skirt, blouse and cardigan. This demure appearance was deceiving, however, for beneath the curls and smiles lurked the thwarted ambition of a would-be Field Marshal.

"You must be Miss Wills," I said affably.

"And you must be that doctor from the General Medical Council who upset Dr Arbuthnot last night," said she, confirming my every conclusion about her. "Mrs Mackintosh told me that you called yesterday evening. If you have business with the Doctor, you had best wait until he is well and not take it upon yourself to go rifling through his papers. Those notes are confidential, you know."

"I did not mean to pry, Miss Wills. I had hoped to complete my business and leave without upsetting the Doctor any more."

She fixed me with a steeling, unsmiling stare. "You couldn't upset him any more if you tried, Doctor. He told Mrs Mackintosh that you accused him of malpractice."

"I did not say that."

She swept past me and took a seat, rather boldly to my mind, in the doctor's armchair behind his desk, where she began to sort through his correspondence. "Rest assured that I shall be writing to the GMC about your conduct. Dr Arbuthnot is a good man and does his best, considering the patients he has."

"Trying, are they?"

Her freckled nose wrinkled in displeasure. "They come to him for advice and then won't follow it. They always think they know best. Look at that Mrs Crabtree--"

At the mention of his former housekeeper, Holmes started forward, his face suddenly pale and his eyes wide and alert.

"Dr Arbuthnot kept telling her to take it easy, what with her varicose veins and blood pressure. Instead she insisted on eating a pot of honey every day, because she said that the old gentlemen she had worked for had kept bees and, since she'd never seen a sick bee, honey couldn't be bad for you."

"Did you tell her that?" I murmured while Miss Wills sliced open an envelope and examined the contents.

"I might have mentioned that honey was once considered efficacious in the treatment of certain diseases," said Holmes. "I deny that I ever recommended consuming a pot a day. That was on her own responsibility."

"The Doctor told her that it would make her ill if she kept doing it, but of course she knew better. Then one day last winter she was eating bread and honey, and it went down the wrong way and she choked. Still, she wouldn't be told."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, as much for Holmes's benefit as Miss Wills. The news that another tie to his mortal existence had been severed appeared to have come as a shock.

"That Mr Escott she used to work for was the same," Miss Wills went on. "Twice Mrs Crabtree called out Dr Arbuthnot when he had one of his turns, and twice he sent him away without so much as a thank you."

"What was the nature of these 'turns'?" I inquired, trying not to show too much interest.

"It was his heart," said she.

"That was Dr Arbuthnot's diagnosis?"

"Yes, but I could have told him that. Even Mrs Crabtree knew what was wrong with him. Perhaps if he hadn't kept himself to himself like he insisted on doing, someone might have found him sooner and been able to save him. But there's no telling these people. Dr Arbuthnot is a saint for tolerating them if you ask me. What can you do with ignorant folk like that?"

* * *

_**Dead former housekeepers, pots of honey and some funny goings-on in the loft! It all sounds highly suspicious. And it**__**'s going to get worse in Chapter Twelve!**_


	12. Chapter Twelve

_There's a serious 'ouch' moment at the end of this chapter. Just so you know..._

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Twelve**

With the ambulance from Hampton Deverell arrived to take Dr Arbuthnot away, my services were no longer required and I was dismissed by the officious Miss Wills. Without access to the doctor's files, the necessity of making a trip to Brighton was unavoidable, and I was more determined than ever to interview the second physician who had confirmed the cause of Holmes's death.

This direct approach was bound to raise questions. Should I use my real name and risk the obvious connection being made? Watson is a fairly common surname, after all, and not exclusive to jobbing Boswells. Should I retain my alias for ease of remembrance and thus be able to slip quietly away if and when the charge of murder was found to be without basis?

For, although I hated to admit it, I cannot deny that I did have my doubts. Holmes may have been convinced, but I was less so.

"To Brighton then," said he, as we emerged into the over-bright morning with its powder blue sky and dappling of scattered clouds.

"Yes, to Brighton." I hesitated. "Holmes, before we go, is there anything you haven't told me?"

"Such as?"

"You didn't tell me about your 'turns'."

His tone became disparaging. "I never had a 'turn' in my life, Watson."

"Miss Wills and Mrs Crabtree say otherwise."

"Miss Wills is devoted to Dr Arbuthnot. She would believe anything he told her."

"Mrs Crabtree?"

"Ah, yes. Her crochet work was admirable, but her housework less so. Did you give any credence to the story of her 'accident'?"

"Another coincidence, perhaps one too many, given her connection to you."

"She was removed," Holmes stated decisively.

"On the other hand, people do die."

"My dear fellow, you persist in saying that as though it had become your personal mantra. Certainly people die, but for some it is before their time. Their souls cry out for justice, and who to give it to them? Those bunglers at Scotland Yard? Half of them have trouble finding their way out of bed in the morning, let alone a criminal. No, Watson, this is our own special province."

"Once, perhaps it was. But as you rightly said before, we have our limits."

"Ah, yes. You enfeebled by age, my old friend–"

"Not that enfeebled," I interjected.

"And I dead, by fair means or foul. However, if you doubt me…"

"I never said that."

"You implied it, which is worse."

"Perhaps I doubt myself, Holmes. I don't know whether you are real… or merely the product of indigestion!"

"Well, I have been called worse in my time," said he, laughing merrily. "In some cases deservedly so. But in this instance, I am not indigestion nor am I attempting to deceive you. I must follow wherever the facts lead me and ultimately that is to the conclusion that my death was untimely."

There had been a genuine note of sincerity in his voice as he spoke. At least, it seemed that way to me. I knew Holmes well enough to know that the playing of roles, for one as much a master in the art of deception as he was pre-eminent in the field of crime and its detection, came as naturally as breathing when he deemed it necessary. Save for those few times when I had glimpsed a more human and less reticent side to his nature over a quiet pipe in the drying room of the Turkish bath or that one memorable occasion I have detailed under the heading of the Three Garridebs, I have always been aware that although the face he wore in my presence was one he reserved for me, it was as much a mask as that he presented to the rest of the world.

Whoever had built that facade had buried themselves deep within its walls years ago and ventured out so rarely that any brief appearance was worth noting. After all this time, I doubted whether Holmes knew himself any more who that elusive creature was.

Because of this, I could never say with any certainty whether he was telling me the whole truth or some convenient invention created on the spur of the moment to satisfy a pressing need. This had led to some embarrassing incidents over the years, not least in the case of the busman's daughter and the twopenny whistle, a retelling of which I fear would add little to my reputation as a doctor, to say nothing of sparing the lady's blushes.

I was torn, therefore, between my loyalty to a friend and good common sense. One wanted me to believe that Holmes would never lie to me about something as heinous as his own murder, a prospect he must surely know would cause me grief, whilst the other told me that he was indeed capable of such a deception and so much more if he thought it suited his purpose.

"Do you still hesitate, Watson?" he persisted. "Would you have me give you my word?"

I do not consider myself an unreasonable man, but Holmes has always had a way of suggesting otherwise. His question to me now, delivered in a supercilious tone of voice married with his most critical and severe of expressions, implied I should know better than to ask. It was an unequal and unfair battle, and as usual I found myself consigned to the losing side.

"No, that won't be necessary," I said with a weary sigh. "I'll find George. Will you be coming with us?"

"By all means. Although to converse my energies, I may absent myself from the actual journey. George could weary even the most indefatigable of souls."

So saying, he faded from my sight. I reflected that this time yesterday, such a spectacle would have caused me consternation and alarm. A day later, after accepting that Holmes had returned as a ghost, after learning that he had cause to believe he had been murdered, after seeing Lestrade again and meeting his grandson, after a long discussion with a dead innkeeper about his trials and tribulations as a spectre, such considerations no longer had any effect on me. One minute Holmes was there and then he was not, and I never knowing when to expect him. It was like the old days at Baker Street all over again.

In that spirit, I went in search of our Baker Street Irregular in training. George was already up when I returned to the Red Lion and I found him devouring a hearty breakfast, watched over by the landlord's wife with all the care and indulgence of a mother hen. Nothing was too much trouble where George was concerned, or as she called him, "that nice young lad of yours". Several sausages arrived on his plate in less time than it took her to prepare me a simple hard-boiled egg. Black pudding, lashings of toasts, fried eggs and bacon came and went while I was still trying to get the shell off my egg.

"Don't make yourself ill," I cautioned, seeing him down a sausage in two bites. "We have a busy day ahead of us."

"Are we still investigating this suspicious death of yours, Dr Watford?"

The surfeit of grease had not dinted his enthusiasm. "_I_ am, George. You are driving. That is, if you are fit to drive?"

He nodded. "Fit as a fiddle. I had a good night's sleep. Did you see the ghost?"

I nearly choked on my tea. "Ghost?"

"So Mrs Parsons was telling me. He wanders about at night and rearranges things in the bar. Last night he took a pack of cards and laid them out on one of the tables. What do you think of that?"

"There's often a rational explanation for these things."

"Perhaps he had some friends round," George said, somehow managing to chuckle and chew at the same time. "I mean, ghosts must have a lot of spare time, so what do they do with it?" He paused and regarded me with wide, inquiring eyes. "Is everything all right, sir? I'm sorry if I've caused offence."

"No, George, you haven't," I said, setting aside my cup. "You do have a vivid imagination though."

He shrugged. "It's not like I'm ever going to see a real ghost. I'm not lucky like that. What about you, sir? Do you believe in ghosts?"

The irony of the situation did not escape me. Before Holmes's appearance had forced me to believe, I had been content to be a sceptic. Now this guileless young lad was asking my opinion and I could not give him an honest answer. This presented me with a dilemma. Unlike Holmes, deception did not come entirely naturally to me; indeed on one occasion he had said that I lacked a talent for dissimulation. With George, however, I was getting a chance to refine my technique. He was an excellent subject with which to work because he had a propensity to believe everything.

It was not a trust I was tempted to abuse. For that reason, I answered him as best I could.

"When one gets to my age, there are many different kinds of ghosts, George. I see the spectre of lost youth in old men's faces. In my mind, I can populate an empty street with a hundred dead men and resurrect the crumbling buildings to their former glory. I can read something and it will call forth a name, a face, a fond memory, a regret. So yes, I do believe in ghosts. Perhaps not in the sense you mean, but real enough to me."

While I had been speaking, George's jaw had dropped ever lower, revealing several pieces of black pudding stuck to his teeth, whilst his eyes had become large and round. I had either embarrassed him with my frankness or stupefied him into not knowing how to reply. Whatever the cause, I had at last succeeded in silencing him. It was too optimistic to believe it would last for long.

"So where are we going today, Doctor?"

"Brighton. I have to see the surgeon who certified the death of the man in question."

George brightened. "I haven't been to the seaside in years. Not since my Pa died." His face fell a little at the memory. "When do you want to leave?"

"As soon as possible. Finish your breakfast while I settle the bill."

A little under half an hour later, we were on the road to Brighton. George was driving, smoking and talking affably about his favourite topic, whilst I sat quietly and attempted to recover from being parted with a considerable sum for our overnight stay at the Red Lion. We arrived at our destination a little before twelve to find the seaside resort already thronged with people and the seafront promenade host to a procession of trundling cars and young men on bicycles. In this fashionable crowd, my old vehicle raised a few eyebrows and caused a few laughs. George blushed profusely and kept his head down, especially when several giggling girls waved at us and made some rather rude comments.

With the car parked and out of sight, I gave him money enough to keep him out of trouble and instructions to meet again after lunch. Unhappy that he was being excluded from my investigations, George said in the most desultory of voices that he would try to find something to do to keep himself amused in my absence. 'Something' soon presented itself in the form of two lissom young ladies who sauntered past and gave him smiled at him shyly, whereupon he brightened considerably and said he would see me later.

With George out of harm's way, I took a cab to the hospital. After some inquiries at reception and a lengthy delay, I was finally ushered into the tidy and spacious office of Sir Sydney Osterley, chief surgeon, to await his return.

Only when his secretary, an attractive girl with a freckled nose, bobbed red hair and green eyes, left promising to return with a cup of tea for me did Holmes reappear. There was something about his restless pacing as he took the measure of the room that made me uneasy, as though a storm were brewing and both of us were apprehensive about what was to come.

"Chief surgeon," said he, idly reading the man's name plate. "You are moving in exalted circles, Watson. Are you hoping for a placement?"

"No, I'm hoping he'll be able to tell me who was the second surgeon who certified the cause of your death."

"Where is the fellow then?"

I shrugged helplessly. That my simple enquiry should have brought me to the door of the titular head of surgery made me suspect the worst.

"If he is still here, I would be very much surprised," said Holmes. "I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that most of the people associated with my latter years are either addled or dead, you being the only exception. With that in mind, I suggest you use your alias. Let us not tempt fate."

I did not have a chance to tell him that I had already made that decision before beginning my inquiries for at that moment, the door opened and Osterley entered. Tall, middle-aged and disdainful, he appeared bemused at my presence and vexed at being interrupted. I knew him by reputation, having read several of his treatises concerning the treatment of diseases of the vascular system, and had heard that others rated his skills highly.

"Dr Watford?" said he, taking his seat with some impatience. He regarded me with no small measure of hostility. "From the General Medical Council, I understand. Something about a cremation certificate?"

"Yes, a small matter of paperwork," I replied.

He gave a snort of disapproval. "Mislaid it, have they? Doesn't surprise me. A worse bunch of old duffers it's never been my misfortune to meet. Oh, current company excepted of course. Tell me though, Doctor, what business is it of the GMC's?"

I had anticipated his curiosity. As Holmes was fond of telling me that I was a poor practitioner in the art of dissembling, I had attempted to follow the good example of Baden Powell's Scouts and be prepared. I only hoped my story would be convincing.

"I'm sure you are aware that cremation is growing in popularity," I began. "The GMC is keen to collate information as to the numbers, the social backgrounds of the deceased, causes of death, that sort of thing."

"Ah, yes, the gathering of data," said he, sitting back in his chair until it creaked. "The bane of a doctor's life. Well, I don't have to tell you that. So that's their interest, is it? I wondered when they'd get round to cremation. Don't fancy it myself, mind, but each to their own. We get a fair few through here, like your fellow… what was his name again?"

"Escott."

"Yes, Escott," he mused. "I remember him. Somewhat unusual circumstances, as I recall."

"Indeed. In what way?"

"In the way that _I_ had to do the formalities. I had a directive from the Home Office if you please. As if I haven't enough to do here without confirming the death of some country yokel who thought burial in the local churchyard wasn't good enough for him."

"_You_ confirmed the cause of death? Do you remember what it was?"

"Do I?" He chuckled. "I certainly should. I'm using it as the basis for my next treatise. Worst case of arteriosclerosis I've ever seen. The last time I saw pipes that blocked was when my lavatory backed up and we had to call the plumber in."

"Then, Mr Escott in your opinion had a heart condition?"

My question was directed at Osterley, but I was looking at Holmes, who from his position in the corner was solemnly shaking his head. He caught my eye and I looked away.

"Undoubtedly," said Osterley. "There was evidence of coronary thrombosis in the months before he died, a fact confirmed orally by the doctor and the man's cleaning woman. I'm surprised he lasted so long to be honest with you."

The red-haired secretary chose that moment to return with tea and a file. Osterley beamed at her somewhat salaciously.

"Thank you, Miss Robinson," he purred, allowing his hand to remain on her waist for a fraction longer than was decent. "Sterling girl," he confided. "Couldn't do without her. Now, old Mr Escott, let me see."

He opened the file, flicked through it nodding and humming to himself, and finally extracted a sheet.

"Yes, everything was in order. You're familiar with the requirements of the 1920 Cremation Act? The deceased left written instructions, Form B was duly completed by the attending physician, I confirmed his statement as to cause of death… well, you're welcome to read it if you wish."

He passed it across to me and I read the bald statement of fact concerning the death of the man who had died under the assumed name of Escott.

"There was nothing untoward as far as I could see," Osterley went on. "The doctor was a drunkard, but his assessment of the man's condition was spot on. Said he'd advised the fellow to take better care of himself after his last attack, but I don't have to tell you, Doctor, how difficult patients of that generation can be. Always think they know best."

"You tested for poisons, I see," I said, reading further down the form.

"As a matter of course. Arsenic, belladonna, coniine, antimony…"

"Taxine?"

"Naturally."

"And there was nothing?"

Osterley's eyes narrowed. "Nothing at all. Listen here, Dr Watford, if you don't mind me asking, who was this Escott? I thought it mighty queer when the Home Office intervened and insisted – _insisted_, mark you, that I take charge of the necessaries." He leaned across the table. "Was this fellow… someone important?"

"No. I understand that it was on account of Dr Arbuthnot that concern was raised."

He nodded in understanding. "He worried me, to be honest. It's why I went the extra mile with the post-mortem. Arbuthnot is under investigation then, is he?"

"I couldn't possibly say."

"I see. All very hush-hush, is it? Well, I appreciate your honesty, Dr Watford. It's a bad thing for the profession when a fellow medico goes wrong, especially a man with Arbuthnot's training. He was a nerve specialist, you know, in Harley Street. There was some trouble over a female patient. Said he'd been conducting his examinations rather too thoroughly, if you know what I mean. If you ask me, he never got over losing his practice. That sort of thing can turn a man's mind."

"So I've heard. Well, all seems to be in order," I said, handing him back the file. "Thank you for your co-operation."

"My pleasure." As he shook my hand in parting, he paused and squinted as he studied my features. "Have we met before, Doctor? Your face seems very familiar somehow."

"No, I don't believe we have."

"So did Escott's, come to think of it. I'm sure I've seen that profile somewhere before. He wasn't an actor, was he?"

I took my leave before he could recall who he thought we most resembled and pressed any further awkward questions. Outside, I took a deep breath to contain the anger that was gnawing at my insides and tried my utmost to ignore the penetrating gaze of my attendant hobgoblin. Holmes was persistent, however, and dogged my heels out of the hospital, into the street and onwards to the seafront. Finally, in a pleasant park of neat green lawns and rainbow-coloured flowers, empty but for an elderly woman feeding a flock of pigeons, my patience gave way.

"What is it you want?" I said, rounding on him. "Stop following me."

"Watson, he's lying."

"No, Holmes, _you_ lied. I saw the post-mortem report. Do you know what arteriosclerosis is? They call it 'old age heart'. That is what killed you. Yet you have had me believe these last two days that someone poisoned you. What I cannot fathom is why you would have done that."

"He's lying," he repeated mildly. "My constitution was always strong. You of all people should know that."

"And of all people, I should know by now what disdain you have for the truth when it suits your purpose. You have the gall to accuse Osterley of lying. Why? He was appointed by the Home Office. He had no connection with Arbuthnot. He didn't even know your real identity."

"Nevertheless–"

"No, Holmes, it will not do. I deserve better than that. Do you have any concept of how the thought that someone had murdered you has affected me these last few days? That someone entered your home and took your life, when you were alone and…"

I paused in my tirade, aware that the woman had stopped dropping breadcrumbs for the birds and was watching me with alarm and consternation. As ever, there was no contrition in Holmes's bemused expression nor any understanding of my accusation. He regarded me with the impatience one reserves for a small child, in a manner both patronising and condescending. It did nothing to cool my temper.

"It is evident to me now that you are a figment of my imagination," I said, "given form by my misplaced guilt over your death. I have conjured you up and invented this nonsense to torment myself. You are dead and that is an end of it. I shall take a holiday and rid you from my mind. Clearly I have been overworking and this has produced a strain on my system."

"What of the Swinson case?" Holmes said.

"That is no longer my concern," I said, turning from him. "No doubt you did your best and the official investigation will uphold your findings. The needs of the living must come before those of the dead. I have a daughter and my grandchildren who depend on me, and I have an engagement tonight that I mean to keep."

"You keep referring to this enigmatic 'engagement', Watson. What is it?"

"I'm giving a lecture to the Reigate Women's Institute."

"About me, I dare say."

The arrogance of the man was appalling. "This may come as a surprise to you, Holmes," I said, as he wandered back into my line of vision, "but not everyone is interested in your exploits."

"It was a logical conclusion, based on the known facts," said he, his eyes as hard and glinting as flawed diamonds. "After all, what have _you_ ever done that could possibly merit their interest?"

The bitterness of his remark crystallised the anger in my heart. "That was unworthy of you," I said, my voice trembling a little as I fought to contain the rawness of the wound that his words had dealt me. "I shall go now, and I would be obliged if you did not follow me. I cannot help you, whatever you are, for I know for certain that you are not the Sherlock Holmes I once knew and was honoured to call a friend. It is clear to me now that you are nothing more than an illusion, a weakness of my mind, caused by overwork and worry. I am ill and you are nothing more than a symptom. Goodbye, Holmes."

He saw that I meant what I said. The shadow of resentment lifted from his face as he attempted to repair the damage he had done.

"Watson, wait," he called after me.

I cringed to hear the plea in his voice. But I shook my head and kept walking, away from the shadowy park and my troublesome conscience, and into the warmth and forgiving sunshine of the bright afternoon.

* * *

_**See what I meant about the 'ouch'? Can you blame Watson for walking away? Shouldn't have lied to him, Holmes. Or did he? There's some explaining to do in Chapter Thirteen!**_


	13. Chapter Thirteen

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Thirteen**

"But do _you_ believe in ghosts, Dr Watson?"

For the second time that day I was faced with that same contentious question. The difference now was that the person asking was not Lestrade's grandson, but a redoubtable matron in feathered hat, spectacles and fur wrap. It was a fair question under the circumstances, although that did not make finding my reply any easier. It demanded a sensible answer, and I was not altogether confident that I was the best person to ask about the subject.

It helped that I was no longer haunted. After our altercation in the park, Holmes's spirit had not returned. I had found George by the pier, eating fish and chips from yesterday's newspaper and his fingers thick with salt and grease. Fearing for the state of my car's upholstery, I had driven and had dropped George off at the nearest railway station to make his own way home.

I had given him his fare and the ten pounds I had promised for his services, telling him that I had been grateful for his assistance but that the investigation was at an end and we could go no further. His expressive young face registered his bitter disappointment at this prospect, and as we parted he said that if I ever needed help again, he would be only too happy to oblige.

I refrained from saying that it seemed unlikely, and let the lad keep his illusions, even if mine were spent.

Despite what Holmes had thought, the evening's lecture was not about him, but rather about a subject close to my heart, namely how to become a published author. The ladies of the Reigate Women's Institute had turned out en mass to fill the church hall to capacity, and their interest was eager and polite. About halfway through the evening, however, when I invited questions, I found myself talking less about writing and more about my illustrious and deceased friend.

The questions were much the same as usual. Were the stories a true statement of fact? Did Mr Sherlock Holmes really write two of them himself? Why was one in the third person? What of the cases mentioned in the stories that had not been published? Why had Mr Holmes put a prohibition on publication of further stories after his return?

To these, I had ready answers, having been asked them many times before. But then another hand shot up and the speaker asked a question about writing in general. Her own particular interest was in the supernatural and, having never seen a ghost, she wanted to know whether that discounted her from venturing an opinion on the subject. When I said that I had never seen a spectral hound before – a remark which raised a few laughs – yet had felt qualified to include such an alleged beast in the story of the Baskerville curse, then she came back with the one question I could not answer.

"Well, Dr Watson, do you?" she persisted.

"I have never written a ghost story, if that is what you mean," I replied. "However, I can imagine what it might be like to be haunted. Imagination, as a friend of mine used to tell me, is a very valuable tool, as useful to a writer as to a detective."

"Then you would say that experience is less essential than imagination. The fact you have never seen a ghost would not deter you from writing about one. Is that correct?"

"That I have never seen a ghost or that I would not be deterred from writing about one?"

"Either, Doctor."

"In that case, no, I would not be deterred."

The lady smiled. "Then you have never seen one?"

I had a moment's pause as I thought I saw a dark shape flit towards the door at the other end of the hall. "No, I have never seen a ghost."

It satisfied the lady, but less so me. I spent an uncomfortable night tossing and turning, troubled by doubt and fearful for my mental state when awake, and tormented by my conscience in dreams which gave that baleful spectre shape and raised him to life again in my sleeping mind.

The result was that I was testy the next morning and ill at ease. I had little breakfast, snapped at the maid and fell over the dog. After that, I took myself to my study and spent some time alone in contemplation of the garden, of the magnolia outside my window, hung low with the leathery petals of its white flowers, and the cherry in full bloom, its blossom carpeting the lawn in pink profusion.

My brown study was only broken when my granddaughter, Alice, sought me out, her favourite book in hand and eager for a little of my time after my absence over the last few days. Her cherubic smile and pretty face, so like her mother at the same tender age, framed by ringlets that hung like gilded shreds down to her shoulders, was enough to melt the hardest of hearts. I set aside my irritation, took her upon my lap and we spent an hour in the company of Peter Pan in a Never-Never Land of fairies and lost boys.

The memory of another lost boy was never far from my thoughts, one who had chosen to plumb the darkest reaches of the mind of mankind, and had lived and aged and died. I wondered if, like those fairies who perished when a child said they did not believe in them, my words of the previous evening, denying his existence, had condemned him to a limbo existence, forever banished, forever lost. He was conspicuous by his absence – I did not flatter myself for a moment that he would take the slightest notice of my wish that he stay away – and that absence concerned me more than his presence.

"Who's that man?" said Alice suddenly, drawing me from my thoughts. She had lost interest in the villainous machinations of pirates and was staring out of the window to the view of the garden beyond. I looked to where she was pointing and saw nothing.

"There's no one out there."

Her ringlets bounced as she nodded her little head in all earnestness. "Yes, there is, grandpapa. There, under the tree, a tall man."

Again, I looked to where the venerable horse chestnut had spread its boughs patiently across the years. "Alice, my dear, I can't see anyone."

"That's because he's all in black and he's in the shadows."

"In black?" This mystery man was starting to sound familiar. "Is he wearing a long coat, like I used to wear?"

She nodded. "And he's smoking a pipe."

"Is he indeed," I said, feeling something of my earlier ill-humour returning. "You sit there and read your book. I'll deal with this."

I left her in the study and set out across the lawn. Under the tree, the temperature was cooler and there was a strong smell of tobacco in the air.

"Holmes, I know you're there," I said out loud. "Show yourself."

He melted out of the shade and stood before me, a wary, half-challenging look in his eyes. "How did you know I was here?"

"Alice saw you. How dare you scare my granddaughter like that. If you want to talk, have the decency to confine your appearances to me and not to frighten my family."

"The child saw me? Impossible. I have been invisible all morning."

"Don't deny it. But then I wouldn't know if you were telling me the truth or not."

"Watson, how many times must I tell you that I can make myself visible only to you? True, I have been here most of the morning. Given your earlier disposition, I thought it best to make myself scarce until your temper had cooled. I cannot explain why your granddaughter can see me, unless…" He hesitated. "Unless she has that ability."

"Are you trying to tell me that Alice is psychic? No, I don't believe a word of it."

"You asked for an explanation. I have endeavoured to do my best in that respect. If you chose not to accept it, that is your prerogative. I would remind you, however, that there is a school of thought that says children are much more sensitive to such phenomena than adults. Has she mentioned anything of the kind before?"

I considered. "She has an imaginary friend. She calls her Maud."

"Then grandfather and granddaughter have much in common," said he, a half-smile touching the corners of his mouth. "The only difference being that I am neither imaginary nor called Maud."

I was in no mood for Holmes's particular brand of humour. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing in particular, as it happens. My morning has been spent in an attitude of extreme lassitude."

"If you have come to apologise—"

"Watson, really."

"I would be most surprised."

He looked down and away, suddenly finding great interest in the small hillock of earth left by a burrowing mole. "Is my apology dependant on your continued assistance?"

"No. But I feel I am owed an explanation."

"Out here? For all the world to wonder at the sight of you talking to yourself?"

He had a point. Even in the solitude of one's garden, it was impossible to be wholly unobserved. The regular thud of a beater against a rug spoke of the unseen presence of the maid doing her chores in the vicinity of the kitchen. The postman would be on his rounds soon, closely followed by the butcher's boy on his bicycle. And in the open long French windows of my study, Alice was standing at the head of the steps, watching us with wide-eyed wonder and childish innocence.

"Come inside," I said. "Since Alice can see you, there's no sense in denying your presence. I don't want to her to think that she is at fault in this."

I started away, but Holmes held back.

"I would prefer to speak to you alone," said he.

"You will. Come and introduce yourself and put her mind at ease. Holmes, for my sake and for yours, do this, if you want my co-operation."

He relented and trailed behind me back to the study. I took the waiting child up in my arms, relieved to find that she was less perturbed than I was by these unusual circumstances. I was worrying unduly, for it has long been my experience that children take a much more pragmatic view of these things than their elders. We have much to learn from their example.

"Alice, I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is Mr Sherlock Holmes."

Her face creased into a shy smile and she favoured him with a wave of her tiny hand.

"Good morning, Alice," said Holmes, ever gracious, bowing slightly.

Everything about him, from his voice to his very posture, ached with acute discomfort. For a man who had wrestled master criminals and counted the crowned heads of Europe amongst his clients, to see him thus disarmed by the greeting of a six-year-old child was amusing.

"Forgive me," he continued, "if I scared you earlier by my presence in the garden."

Alice shook her head. "I wasn't scared. Maud told me who you were."

"Maud?" I asked. "Is she here now?"

"She went upstairs. She didn't want to meet him."

"I can't say I blame her." I cast a sideways glance at Holmes as I returned the child to her feet. "Run along now, Alice. I have to speak to Mr Holmes."

Obedient as she was pretty, she left without demur and I soon heard her footsteps scampering up the stairs. I closed the door and turned back to Holmes, to find him staring intently at the ceiling.

"You do have a ghost," he murmured. "I can sense her presence upstairs. A child, I think."

"Should I be concerned?"

"No," said he, subsiding into the armchair opposite. "Your granddaughter seems content enough. She appears to be a sensible child. You have…" He paused and I saw the effort it took him to continue. "A _nice_ family, Watson."

"One you could have met when you were alive had you not been so stubborn in refusing my invitations."

That elusive smile I remembered of old briefly touched his lips. "Yours was not a bachelor establishment. And I did not want to intrude. You had your problems. This house has seen grief enough in recent years without my having added to it."

There was something in what he said. The years after the Great War had seen their fair share of sorrow as well as happiness. First my wife, Marguerite, to cancer and then my daughter's husband, Dennis, her childhood sweetheart who had returned from the trenches a troubled, shell-shocked man and whose miseries had finally been laid to rest when he was killed by a train at a level-crossing. The coroner had been considerate in judging it a tragic accident, and had overlooked Dennis's fragile state of mind at the time. There had been doubt. The dead, however, were best left in peace.

"Nevertheless," I said, "you did not have to isolate yourself as you did. Arrangements could have been made. You did not have to die… alone."

Holmes regarded me in measured silence. "Why does that trouble you so, Watson? It was of no concern to me, I can assure you, and your occasional visits were always a welcome diversion in my busy routine."

I took a moment to rearrange the pens in the tray, knowing that even if I told him he would not understand.

"It mattered," I stated simply. "The thought that you were ill and could not confide in me…"

"Grieves you?" Holmes rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and pressed his fingertips together in his usual attitude of one about to give a disquisition. "You need not trouble yourself on that account, my dear fellow. The fault did not lie with you." His restless eyes found their home and he held my gaze. "In truth, Watson, I erred."

"You _erred_, Holmes?"

"Oh, yes. Those chronicles of those which you have employed to the entertainment of the public contain examples enough to attest to my fallibility. From a professional point of view, I consider those cases you have entitled 'A Scandal in Bohemia' and that of 'The Yellow Face' to be utter failures. To those you may add the nature of my own demise."

"I thought we had established that you were not murdered."

He nodded mutely. "Except that I believed that I was. Or rather I _hoped_ that that was the case."

"You _hoped_, Holmes?" I said aghast. "Why on earth would you hope that?"

"If you are going to repeat everything I say," said he testily, "we will be here all day."

"If I am surprised, it is only because I cannot see why you would wish it so."

"Because it would have settled my mind as to certain other of my concerns. How could I have been so wrong? I dismissed Arbuthnot and his advice out of hand! The man was an inebriated fool, and yet he was telling me that I should rest and take it easy?"

"In other words, you could not accept what he told you."

The fierce light of passion faded in his eyes. "Yes. I was wrong. He was right. It makes me wonder what else I have misjudged in my long and varied career."

"Well, you were always most careless in matters of your health. As your doctor and your friend, you were a constant source of worry to me. That does not mean, however, that it has any bearing on your professional judgement."

"I disagree. If a man does not know himself, then how can he be trusted where other people are concerned?" I tried to protest, but he would have none of it and silenced me with a brisk wave of his hand. "I was certain that Swinson was guilty. That, coupled with his confession, made me blind to the other possibilities."

"Holmes, there is nothing to say that the evidence Swinson's daughter has produced is genuine. We have no data. You yourself many years ago said that you couldn't make bricks without clay. Yet it seems to me that is precisely what you have done. You have tried, convicted and condemned yourself based on the slightest of evidence."

He regarded me evenly. "How do you propose I remedy the situation?"

"You know full well. Don't pretend you didn't come here today with the express purpose of persuading me to help you."

"No, I shall not pretend, Watson. It is not my intention to persuade, convince or cajole you. I am _asking_ for your help." A frown settled on his brow. "It is not request that comes easy to my nature. I have been accustomed to relying on no one, save my own wits. Now reliance becomes a necessity because I am… _helpless_." He fairly spat out the word. "I inhabit a world that touches yours only through our interaction. I see, I hear, I sense, and yet none but you share my experience. I am neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. The worst of it, the greatest indignity of all, is that I cannot touch, but I can feel. I have spent a lifetime containing those emotions so destructive to the logical facilities and now they _rule_ me. It is intolerable. If I cannot master them, then I am at their mercy and useless to myself and you."

"Is that what happened in Arbuthnot's house?" I asked gently.

Holmes nodded, closing his eyes as he spoke. "According to friend Hopgood, my reaction could have been brought about by anything from being in the same room as a sample of my blood or my previous animosity towards the man. Were I better able to control and focus these unbridled instincts, I could have made use of them. As it was, it was all I could do to remain the building."

"Mind you," I said, "Arbuthnot's behaviour was out of the ordinary, considering that your death was from natural causes. Perhaps he feared that he would be blamed for not treating your condition. To be fair to him, from what I read in the post-mortem report, there was little he could have done. As Osterley put it, your 'pipes' were considerably congested."

"A fine epitaph," Holmes muttered. "Sherlock Holmes, dead through want of a plumber!"

"May we agree then that you were not murdered?"

"Reluctantly, yes," said he with a heartfelt sigh of resignation. "I never meant to mislead you, Watson. I believed that my death was hastened."

"I accept that you believed it, Holmes. That doesn't explain why you lied about your two previous attacks."

"Because I do not remember them. The first time, I was tending to the bees. I have a vague recollection of dizziness and a pain in my chest. When I woke up, I was in my bed with Arbuthnot standing over me in an alcoholic stupor, muttering something about my heart being weak. Is it any wonder that I did not trust his diagnosis?"

"And the second time?"

"Another dizzy spell whilst I was preparing for bed. Mrs Crabtree said she thought I was dead when she found me in the morning sprawled across the rug."

"Holmes, why didn't you tell me?"

A nerve twitched at the side of his jaw. "If I told you that you were losing your mind because you had seen a ghost, would you believe me?"

"I would not dismiss the possibility."

"And are you?"

"Losing my mind? No. Were you my hallucination alone, I should have cause for concern. That Alice saw you does not please me, but it does assuage my fears."

"Well, I had no Alice. I had a gossip-prone cleaning lady and a dipsomaniac country doctor. In retrospect, I should have sought a second opinion. But that is the curse of hindsight – it comes too late to be of much assistance." He glanced across at me. "In any case, what could you have done about it? Osterley said it was only a matter of time."

"I should have liked to have tried."

"Then you would have failed, and we would have tasted defeat together. Leave the bitterest gall to me, my dear fellow, and accept that I died because my body could no longer live. What happened after that was, I am sorry to say, nothing more than the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

"Are you referring to Mrs Crabtree's death?"

He nodded. "As you yourself said, people do die."

"What of Swinson's daughter pressing for a reinvestigation of her father's case? The timing of the inquiry makes me uneasy, Holmes."

"Perhaps she has a friend at the Home Office. More people knew of my death than we hitherto suspected."

"Well, I shall make a point of asking her."

"You intend to take up the case again?" Holmes said, something of the intensity of old animating the pale light of his eyes.

"You have asked for my help. When have I ever been able to refuse you?"

"Hah! Good old Watson, my faithful stout heart," said he, rising briskly to his feet. "The game will ever be afoot while you are at my side. Do you know why I chose you to act as my intermediary?"

"Because I'm the only one who could put up with you?"

He smiled. "No. Because you are the one man I trust beyond all others."

"Holmes…"

"No, I do not say this lightly. It has long been an axiom of mine that trust is only dangerous if you have to depend upon it. Well, I depend upon you, my friend. If a danger it is, then it is one I have gladly embraced a thousand times over. I have trusted you with my life before now, Watson. There is no other I would trust with the welfare of my soul."

I was moved by his words more than I cared to admit. "No need to overdo it, old fellow," I said, clearing my throat. "I've already agreed to help."

"More readily than I deserve. Yesterday, if I was unduly harsh, you must excuse it as the frustrated outpourings of one who is slow to change and bend his stiff neck to the yoke. If nothing else, death teaches one the virtue of patience." He smiled fleetingly. "I enjoyed your lecture last night, by the way."

"You were there?"

"Oh, yes, and found it most interesting. You have quite a following."

I shook my head, my gaze turning to the window as I heard the crunch of gravel beneath wheels in the drive outside. "It is you they want to hear about, not me. You were correct in that respect. As for what I said, about not believing in ghosts, after I said it, Holmes—"

"You wondered if it would bring an end to my existence?" said he with a laugh. "It is not as easy as that, Watson. I have awareness and a will of my own. If I chose to be here, then here is where I shall be. However, you have only to say the word and I shall dog your heels like an afternoon shadow no more."

"No, stay and let us get to the bottom of this Swinson business. What shall we do about George?"

"Ring him," Holmes said decisively. "Because I was not murdered does not mean that there may still be danger in pursuing this investigation. I would rather endure a few hours of his ceaseless babble than an eternity of knowing my pride had caused you harm."

I was about to lift the receiver when there came a knock and the housemaid put her head around the door. "Dr Watson, sir, there's a young man outside said he wants to see you," said she. "He says he knows you, sir."

"Who is he, Molly?"

"He says his name's George Lawson, sir."

I stared at Holmes, and was relieved to see that he was equally taken aback by this unexpected turn of events.

"George, here?" I murmured, after telling the maid to show him in. "How the devil did he find out?"

* * *

_**How the devil indeed? There are some surprises in store in Chapter Fourteen!**_


	14. Chapter Fourteen

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Fourteen**

George entered like a thunderbolt, a hectic explosion of undirected frenetic energy, all wild eyes, unruly hair and glistening forehead.

"Dr Watson, forgive the intrusion," he babbled, his words tumbling over each other in their race to be heard. "Please, sir, I must speak with you."

"I would say, Watson," said Holmes, removing himself from the chair in time to allow George to tumble breathlessly into it, "that someone has been less than honest with us."

"Yes, I was thinking that too," I replied under my breath.

It was a wasted gesture, given the noise that George had generated from his whirlwind entrance. Papers scattered, a book tumbled, and a plaster bust was knocked by an unwary elbow to the floor. Finally he succeeded in hitting the leg of his chair up against my mahogany desk. This was swiftly followed by his overturning my neglected cup of tea across my journals. Considering that the desk was over fifty years old and had not had to endure half as much ill-treatment in its entire life-time than it had had in the last minute, I feared that it would last the course if George continued in this vein.

I tried to put a brave face on it as we dabbed up the spreading liquid. What cannot be changed must be borne, I thought, trying to be generous and stoic at the same time about the damage being wrought to an antique piece of furniture.

As the dust began to settle, I noticed that our maid was still lingering and casting critical glances at my young visitor, who was preoccupied in fanning his red cheeks with one hand and trying to straighten his crumpled tie with the other. When I nodded to that all was well and could left to deal with the visitor, she opened her mouth to say something and then thought better of it. Having seen his clumsy treatment of a cup and saucer, I gathered that she would not be offering him tea.

"Well, George," I said when we were finally alone. "Evidently you know who I am. Did your grandfather tell you?"

George shook his head. "No. He thinks I don't know. But of course I did. You can't be a devotee of detective fiction and not know about you and Mr Sherlock Holmes."

I chanced a sideways glance at my ghostly friend to see how he would react to being assigned second place. Fortunately he had his back to me, and the slow rise and fall of his shoulders did not betray his innermost thoughts. Whatever his concerns about his erratic emotional state, he was doing an admirable job of concealing them from me.

"I see," I said, looking back to George. "I had understood otherwise."

"My grandfather thinks he's following my father's wishes in that respect. I suppose for him it's a way of keeping his memory alive. They didn't always see eye to eye."

"That can happen between parents and their offspring."

"If it makes him happy, thinking that, then I don't want to upset him. What he doesn't know is that my mother used to read me the stories when my father was out of the house, because she said I should be proud of my family's association with a great detective like Mr Holmes. My father wasn't though. He even changed our surname because he said I'd be bullied at school if they knew who my grandfather was."

"Perhaps he was right."

"I was bullied anyway, so it didn't make a whole lot of difference."

The memory of unhappier days dulled the shine of his eager eyes. I saw something of the shadow of the child that had been in the man before me, as he chewed his lower lip and tried to remember the courage that had brought him to me.

"My grandfather's in trouble, isn't he?" said he at last. "I know something's playing on his mind. He's been preoccupied this last month and won't tell me why. Then, when I got home yesterday, I found that he'd had an accident at the allotment. He'd put the garden fork through his foot. He wouldn't have done that if he'd been concentrating on what he was doing."

"I'm sorry to hear that. How is he?"

"He'll be fine." His relief and certainty in that respect was all too evident. "The doctor said he'll be off his feet for a couple of weeks. That's not so bad, but he'll fret, I know he will. It's going to drive him mad sitting at home all day. If he has to be confined to the house, I'd rather that he didn't have this anxiety hanging over him."

He sat up tall in his chair, something of the old Lestrade doggedness evident in the way he stuck out his chin and fixed me with a level stare.

"He's my grandfather, sir. I know it's something to do with one of his old cases, and you turning up out of the blue made me wonder if it was one that you and he investigated together. I want to help him."

George was not making this easy for me. I had promised his grandfather not to tell the boy about our former alliance, even to keep my identity a secret from him, and yet it seemed he knew most of the story in any case. Taking him into my confidence was problematic. I would not have described George as particularly discreet. Sooner or later my disloyalty would get back to Lestrade's ears. I could not help thinking that he would not thank me for it.

"You have presented me with a dilemma," I admitted. "Please understand that I am bound to observe your grandfather's wishes."

He considered for a fraction. "Very well, sir. What if I hired you to investigate the case on his behalf?"

"George, really, that isn't necessary."

"I have the ten pounds you gave," said he, fumbling in his pockets and coming up with a handful of change. "Well, four pounds five shillings and sixpence, actually. I had some expenses. But I can get more."

"It isn't a question of money."

"Then what, sir? You told me yesterday that your investigation was over. Does that mean there is no hope for my grandfather? Please, sir, he had a reputation. It means a lot of him, and to me. Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?"

"For pity's sake," said Holmes, turning from the window, "after an eloquent appeal like that, what are you waiting for, Watson? Tell the lad and let's be on our way."

"In that case," I said, seeing the bright look of anticipation return to his eyes, "I would be glad of your assistance, George. In matter of fact, I was about to telephone you to see if you were free today. I believe I was somewhat hasty yesterday in terminating my inquiries."

"There are other avenues of investigation still to follow?"

"Yes. Since you know that much already, I see no harm in telling you. But first, satisfy an old man's curiosity and tell me you knew who I was. You might have known my name, but not what I looked like."

"Oh, but I do." He delved into his inner pocket and, amidst a jumble of pink fluff, boiled sweets, a tarnished vesta case and a blunt pencil, produced an impressive array of cigarette cards. "Your likeness, sir, and that of Mr Holmes."

He passed the slips of printed card across to me. I had to put my reading glasses on to recognise the face of a thinner, younger me, in the days before my hair had turned to white and I was still reckoned fleet of foot.

"Nothing like you," Holmes declared, peering at the image over my shoulder. "You were never that trim, Watson."

I gave him an unfriendly glare. "I have changed somewhat since those days," I said aloud for George's benefit.

"And then there was your name, sir," George went on. "My grandfather was never very inventive when it came to aliases. Every dog he ever had was called Rex. It was too much of a coincidence, you being a doctor and knowing my grandfather when he was at the Yard. A good detective doesn't trust to coincidences."

"I can remember a time when I was that naive," Holmes's voice sounded from behind me. "You should tell the lad of our recent experiences. That might shake his confidence."

"That still doesn't explain how you knew my address," I said, ignoring him.

"Because you wrote to me, sir." He produced a yellowing envelope from his pocket and with the greatest of care extracted the faded sheet within. "You probably don't remember, but when I was eleven, I sent you a letter, saying how I thought you and Mr Holmes were the best detectives in all the world. I feel rather embarrassed by it now I've actually met you." A slight colour rose to his cheeks. "You were kind enough to reply back then, and your address was on the letter heading. I've kept it all these years."

I took the letter and read the lines I had written nine years before. There had been so many like this, a few hurried sentences, thanking a young correspondent for his letter and kind compliments, and assuring him that there would be more stories about Mr Holmes's cases in the future. To reply had cost me no more than a few minutes of my time and the price of a stamp. To the receiver, an unknown young man by the name of George Lawson, who had lost his father during an air raid and whose grandfather had once been a familiar face at Baker Street, it had been prize beyond measure.

With hindsight, had I known who he was, I would have sent something more meaningful than the standard reply. I would have found the words to say that his grandfather had been a good and decent man, who had done nothing to earn public scorn except to find himself up against one of the most unique and formidable minds of his age. I should have told him too that I had been pleased to count him among my acquaintances, a trust I had repaid by vilifying him in print and casting a cloud over the good name of Lestrade for as long as my words were read and remembered.

Holmes would have called it maudlin sentimentality on my part, yet I could not help but be moved. I had to lay aside my glasses to prevent the moisture prickling in the corner of my eyes from escaping down my cheeks. Perhaps it was not too late.

"George," I began, "about your grandfather, about the stories."

"It's all right, sir," said he brightly. "I know."

"You do?"

"Yes. That person, it isn't really how my grandfather was. You had to have a bumbling detective because if the police solved the crimes, there would be nothing for Mr Holmes to investigate. I know it's not really him, because the Lestrade in your stories is devoid of reason and my grandfather was never that. Am I right?"

I sat staring at him, torn between amazement and admiration. "Yes, George, you are," I said when I had found my voice. "If your grandfather could have heard, you would have made him proud."

"I do my best." He gave a shamefaced grin. "When do you want to leave?"

"Give me five minutes. If you wouldn't mind warming up the car, it's in the garage."

"Actually, sir, I've brought my own transport. I thought we might travel in comfort rather than…"

"Rather than my old Ford." I did not take offence, and perhaps there was something to be said for a more reliable vehicle. "In that case, George, your car it is. And please, call me Dr Watson. The way you keep calling me 'sir' makes me feel like an ancient headmaster."

"Very well, s—Dr Watson."

He leapt to his feet and galloped out of the room, knocking the china lamp over in haste. That it did not break as it came to rest on the floor owed much to Holmes's timely intervention in slowing its descent with an elegant gesture and turning it so that arrived upright and upon its base.

"That boy," he observed, gazing thoughtfully at the place where George had last been, "isn't half as silly as he looks."

"Well, I think you're wrong about him, Holmes. He isn't silly at all."

"You could be right. I can hardly consider myself the best judge of character at the moment. It is a hard thing, Watson, for a man to admit that he has erred."

"Hard for you, you mean. The rest of us seem to manage." I smiled at his annoyance. "How much do I tell him?"

"Everything, omitting my presence, of course. What is there to be gained by secrecy now? If he is anything like his grandfather, he will get it out of you eventually. Lestrade would not approve, but since our young friend knows, we stand only to gain by his greater involvement. Another pair of hands may prove invaluable to us. You do have your limits, in that respect."

I had to smile at his choice of description. "You like him now, don't you?" I said, rising to my feet. "Because he knows who you are."

Holmes sniffed sardonically. "If I derive a certain satisfaction from that fact, I trust I shall not be judged too harshly. I am only human, after all. One would not wish to be entirely forgotten."

"And to think I once called you a brain without a heart," I said, laughing.

"A description which is more apt now than ever. Had been 'without a heart' as you put it, I should not find myself in this undignified position. Well, are you coming?"

I gathered up the few things I would need, made my peace with my daughter for having to leave her yet again without explanation and went outside to find George at the wheel of a canary-yellow Austin. A neat, small car, it was rather boxy in shape with a large silver grill like so many shining teeth in a wide grin set between the two glassy eyes of its headlights. To my mind, accustomed to my battered old Ford, it lacked something in size, but it more than made up for it in comfort. The leather seats were soft, the engine hummed gently like a purring cat, the roof was covered in and it had windows to keep out the elements. Wherever our travels took us, at least we would not be embarrassed by our transport.

"Where to?" George wanted to know.

"Little Seaton in Hampshire."

He fished a map out of the glove compartment and consulted it. "It's not too far. In this baby, we should be there just after lunch."

"Bab—" The word was taken from my mouth as George stamped his foot on the accelerator and we lurched out of the drive, spewing gravel in our wake. Telling him to use caution was wasted, for he set to his task like a racing car driver entering the final lap at Brooklands.

"So why are we going to Little Seaton?" he asked as we sped along.

Following Holmes's advice and against my better judgement, I gave him a brief summary of the Swinson case. "Little Seaton was the last address I have for the family. If they are still there, all well and good. If not, perhaps the new owner can tell us where they went."

"Can't you ask Scotland Yard where they are?"

"No. I don't think they'd appreciate our interfering."

"Ah, working outside the law, are we?"

"No, George, we are simply making our own enquiries as private citizens."

"If we weren't, I wouldn't mind," said he, showing a remarkable degree of liberalism for one whose grandfather had been a Chief Inspector. "You and Mr Holmes were always fudging the lines."

"I wouldn't have put it quite like that."

"What about that business with the Blue Carbuncle? Or that Milverton character? Wasn't that fudging?"

I could not fault with the boy's logic. "Mr Holmes had his own ideas about justice. He believed his unofficial status gave him the right to make such judgements. And in some case, I dare say he was right."

"Isn't that what we are – unofficial? Doesn't that give us licence to 'fudge' just a little?"

"No, it does not," I said, reprovingly. "I fear, George, you have a very romantic notion of detective work."

"And whose fault is that?" said Holmes from the back seat. "The phrase you're looking for, Watson, is _'mea culpa'_. A generation has grown up with their heads filled with fanciful notions about the glamorous life of the detective thanks to your writings. I always said they were superficial, and this is the result. As you sow, so shall you reap."

He knew I was no in position to answer back. It was all I could do to stop myself from grinding my teeth in annoyance.

"Whatever we discover – if there is anything to discover – we will turn it over to the police," I told my young companion. "Matthew Swinson's daughter, now calling herself Mrs Margery Currie, claims to have new evidence that points to her father's innocence. On the strength of it, an enquiry has been opened. I should very much like to know what that evidence is."

"This case," George asked, "if it was one Mr Holmes and my grandfather investigated, why were you not involved?"

"1902? I was living at my own rooms in Queen Anne Street by then. Why Holmes never asked for my assistance, I cannot say."

"You were busy wooing, as I recall," said Holmes.

"However _busy_ I was," I said for his benefit, "it didn't usually stop him from sending for me… or I from going."

When I looked up again, I caught him watching me. "You miss those days," he stated, returning his gaze the road just in time to veer us out of the path of an oncoming lorry.

"Some days more than others," I agreed. "And sometimes it feels as though they never went away."

A long silence ensued and for several miles we sought the sanctuary of our own thoughts. George found himself a cigarette and lit it with difficulty, cursing when he dropped the smouldering match into his lap. Behind us, Holmes had fallen into a brown study, and I transferred my gaze to the view from window and watched the endless ribbon of hedge stream by with its tantalising glimpses of green pastures and shining rivers beyond. We were a long way from Baker Street and the situation had never been as complicated as this, but yes, there was something of the past about our venture.

Even troubled by doubts, Holmes was still as he ever was, arrogant, presuming and treating his demise as nothing more than an inconvenience that had imposed unnecessary strictures upon him. As much as he irritated me, I hated to admit that he also inspired me. I felt invigorated, young again. At the same time I was disappointed with myself, for hankering after the busy days that I had thought myself content to leave behind for marriage and children. There was regret too, that once our investigation was over, I would lose him again and life would fall back into its usual safe, stolid, comfortable routine.

I tried not to ponder too deeply on whether it was Holmes I missed or that frisson of uncertainty that always seemed to accompany him. Perhaps they were one and the same thing. For the present, it was enough that we were going to Hampshire, and in the company of a Lestrade. It had a familiar ring about it. Because of that, it was to be savoured, not spoilt by dwelling too deeply on the past.

When I came back to the present, it was to find George chaffing about something and making little sense.

"It's just that I was wondering," he repeated. "Does it matter?"

"Does what matter?"

"That what I said in my letter isn't strictly true any more. I mean to say, I admire Mr Holmes greatly and I've learnt a lot from your stories, but…"

I smiled in understanding. "There's someone you like more. It's all right, George, I'm used to it by now."

"You aren't offended?"

"Of course not. Who is it?"

He squirmed, looked embarrassed and finally decided to confess. "Rin Tin Tin."

It was not what I had expected. In a strange sort of way, however, it made sense. Second place to a dog, albeit a highly intelligent one – I did not need to see Holmes's expression to know what he would have thought of that. And the more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed, until suddenly I could not contain myself and I burst out laughing.

"Are you quite well, Dr Watson?" said my concerned young companion.

"Never better," I replied, when I had regained my breath and brushed the tears from my cheeks. "It's going to be a pleasure having you along, George. You really are a most _remarkable_ lad."

* * *

**_Who's a clever boy then? I think we can just about forgive George for preferring a detective dog to Sherlock Holmes (well, just! He's young, he'll learn… and Rin Tin Tin was _very_ popular)._**

_**So, button up your overcoats, start singing in the rain and practice that Charleston because what's waiting at Little Seaton is going to prove too, too exciting (and glamorous) for words! Cultures are going to clash in Chapter Fifteen!**_


	15. Chapter Fifteen

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Fifteen**

We arrived at Little Seaton a little before lunch, having travelled at speeds more commonly associated with flying than motoring. Holmes had a vague memory of our destination and, by my relaying directions to George as they came to him, usually several seconds after we had passed the appropriate turning, we eventually found ourselves in a tree-lined avenue at the further end of which, so I was assured, was our destination.

Pebbles rattled off the rows of lightly-clad limes like so many bullets as George again applied himself too vigorously to the accelerator and entered the main drive at a speed that made the vehicle slide sideways on the surface of gravel. We came to rest, with inches to spare so it seemed to me, although in reality it was probably a few feet, from a gleaming ruby red motor car. I prayed that we had not been cause of the several stone chips I saw in its otherwise immaculate sides, or if we had, that no one had seen us. George, his eyes bright with exhilaration, declared the experience had been 'jolly'.

If I demurred, it was because my legs were trembling in a way that had nothing to do with my advancing years.

Relieved to have my two feet back on solid ground, I clambered from the car and took stock of my surrounding. Little Seaton Manor was an unremarkable red-brick affair, a survivor, like myself from the previous century, and presenting all those features synonymous with the expectations and aspirations of its owners. In its uniformity and symmetrical appearance, there was nothing exceptional to distinguish it from hundreds of similar stately piles across the country. Only the wisteria snaking over the doorway offered any break in the monotony, and this, thick-stemmed and knotted, appeared to be as old as the house itself. If so, it spoke of continuity and again raised my hopes that the Swinson family had not moved far from their roots, despite the tragedy that had occurred here several decades before.

I was eager to press on, but George was strangely absent, as though the speed of the journey had wearied him to the point of stagnation. I eventually found him standing in awe of the ruby red car and revering it as though it was a sacred relic.

"It's a Bentley, Dr Watson," said he in hushed tones. His hand hovered over the bonnet in the attitude of one afraid to touch lest the object of his admiration turned and bit him. "Isn't it magnificent?"

In size, it quite dwarfed our little Austin. If our car had purred, then one could imagine that this beast roared. Sleek, imposing and masterful, it demanded that one take notice. Even I, who considered myself beyond such things, felt my pulse quicken at the sight of it and had to remind myself that such a vehicle was beyond my means.

"I'll never own a car like this," said George, bleakly, as if reading my thoughts. "You don't get rich living on the dole."

I had sympathy for his predicament. Only the year before, the papers had reported that the numbers of the unemployed had crept back to near parity with the situation after the War when over two and a half million men were out of work. For a young man like George, eager and obviously intelligent, to have to spend his days chasing too few jobs with too many applicants must have been demoralising.

"I'm sure you'll find employment soon," I said by way of consolation. "A bright young lad like you won't be out of work for much longer."

From his expression, I had the distinct impression that he was about to contradict me. A moment later, he had thought better of it. Instead, he nodded glumly, thrust his hands into his pockets and resumed that vacant smile of his.

"What's our plan?" he asked. "For questioning the Swinsons, I mean."

"We're making discreet enquiries," I reminded him. "If they do live here, I'd rather they didn't know the nature of my involvement, so for today I'm—"

"Dr Watford," said George, beaming. "Yes, I know. You can rely on me not to tell."

Somewhat assured, I went to door and rang the bell. From somewhere within the recesses of the house issued the tinny notes of a gramophone and the rise and fall of voices. A white shape moved behind the frosted glass of the door and there came the sound of a bolt being drawn back. Presently, a pale-faced maid with dark curls peeping from beneath her linen cap appeared to ask us our business.

"Pardon the intrusion," I said. "We are seeking the Swinson family. Do they live here?"

The maid muttered something that I failed to catch and stood aside. Evidently, our request was to be granted, although whether the Swinsons were in residence or not was not immediately clear. George shrugged when I asked him if he had caught the maid's words, lessening my concern that my hearing was failing.

We followed her through a dark-panelled hall, where plants struggled towards the thin light from their patterned pots and dropped their straggling yellow leaves onto the expensive Turkish mats below. As we advanced, the music grew louder, mingled now with the sounds of girlish laughter and the deeper baritone of a male voice. Through a door we passed into a flood of white light, dazzling to the eyes as it streamed in through the open French windows that led out to an immaculate garden beyond.

By the time my eyes had adjusted, the maid had said her introduction, curtseyed and was on her way out, leaving us in the presence of a comely young lady, scantly clad in veils, a profusion of beads and an Egyptian-style headdress. On the white couch, a young man reposed in the attire of a Roman soldier, the gold dust in his dark blond hair catching the light to gleam extravagantly whilst his eyelids drooped under the weight of the grease smeared across their surface.

If our interruption had caused them any inconvenience, neither of them betrayed any sign of irritation. The young man regarded us with an air of indifference whilst his companion seemed in no great hurry to discern our purpose, but continued to sway to the music until finally it came to an end. With that, she sighed theatrically and fell into the nearest armchair, her veils spreading about her like the coloured feathers of an exotic bird.

"Well, who are you?" she demanded. "What do you want?"

When I told her, she merely looked bored.

"You need to speak to Mums about that," said the girl, turning to her companion. "Darling, I'm too, too exhausted. Do you have a smoke?"

"Clean out," replied the youth languidly.

She snorted and pushed herself from the chair. Her eye came to rest on George. "What about you?"

George, transfixed by this vision of loveliness, obligingly stepped forward. She smiled at him playfully as she helped herself from his cigarette case and waited for a light. George was only too willing to do the gentlemanly thing and was rewarded with another of those winning smiles.

"So, why are you looking for the Swinsons?" she asked, toying with the cigarette between her long white fingers with their painted nails and stained fingertips.

"We're working on a case," George blurted out, any thought for discretion dashed out of his mind by the allure of a pretty face. "Do you know where they are?"

"I might."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, darling, tell the poor boy and put him out of his misery," said the young man, rising from his chair. "Your mother's maiden name was Swinson, wasn't it?"

"Gerry, you are a rotten beast," said she, pouting. "Well, I did say they should speak to Mums. I'm Millie Weatherstone, by the way. This is my cousin, Gerard Turner—cousin on my father's side before you get any funny ideas." She slipped her arm through his. "He's an Honourable or something, aren't you, love?"

"Or something," Turner replied, his voice stinging in its contempt. "Well, we know who you are, Doctor, but what of this gilded youth at your side?"

"George Lawson," said he, offering a hand which neither deigned to take. Then, before I could stop him, his lack of natural caution got the better of him. "Our families have met before, although under less happy circumstances. My grandfather arrested your uncle for murder."

I allowed myself a groan of dismay as Turner and Millie Weatherstone exploded in a fit of laughter.

"What an introduction!" cried Turner. "Oh, but, my dear, that's just too, too delicious for words. Is it true, Millie? Did you have a wicked uncle?"

"Before my time, Gerry," said she doubtfully. "Mums has never mentioned it, although I do recall her saying once a long time ago that she had a brother who died young." Her eyes suddenly lit up. "That must be who you mean! I say, it's rather grand having a murderer in the family. Tell me, dearest George, who did he murder? Was he hanged? Yes, I bet he was hanged! Did he go to his death protesting his innocence?"

"What a charming family," Holmes remarked as he took a turn in the direction of the open doors and stood staring out at the garden beyond. "The last time I was in this room it was to hear Swinson confess to a double murder. In the circumstances, the memory is not a pleasant one." So saying, he stepped briskly across the threshold, only to look back and catch my eye. "I won't be far away, Watson. As for these two, let them have their heads. In the midst of so much foolishness, we may yet learn something to our advantage."

"Millie dear, they _all_ protest their innocence," Turner was opining as Holmes vanished from sight. "Don't you know _anything_?"

"I know I shall be the toast of the ball tonight," she giggled. "I'll wager no one else has a wicked uncle. How many did he murder, George?"

"Two. Your—"

I caught his arm and stopped him before he could say more.

"Two!" she shrieked. "Not once, but twice. Oh, but don't pout, darling Gerry. You being out of humour is too, too sick-making. I won't steal your thunder tonight, not too much anyhow." She patted him on the arm. "Be a dear and make us drinks. Darling George must be thirsty."

"Yes, I am," said he, melting as she winked at him.

"Of course you are," said she. "Oh, but I am such a terrible hostess. Sit, sit, both of you. Mums will be down shortly. Tell me, George, what do you think of my outfit?"

She paraded in front of him, her veils dancing with each light step as the coins about her belt rattled against tiny gold bells. I would have rescued George, but from the expression on his face, he appeared to be enjoying himself. Charm, allied with gaudy riches and scant clothing, will turn a young man's head every time.

"I think it's… simply _wonderful_," said he breathlessly as she passed close enough to allow the drapery to brush across his cheek. "But why are you dressed like that?"

"There's a party over at Crossington Ford tonight. Themed of course. We have to go as famous doubles. Now who are we?"

She stuck an arm up in the arm and arched her back. George stared at her, his eyes as wide as they could go, utterly speechless.

"Oh, don't be a bore, darling," the girl teased. "Don't you know?"

"Antony and Cleopatra," I murmured.

His answer, when it came, met with a squeal of delight. Millie Weatherstone swooped upon him and kissed him on the nose. "What a clever thing you are," said she.

"Personally, I think it's rather passé," said Turner, wandering over with two glasses in his hands. "You have to have the legs to wear a toga, and mine are past their best. What do you think, George? Will I pass muster in this get-up?"

A high colour rose to the boy's cheeks. "I wouldn't know," he stammered. "I've never seen a Roman's legs before."

Turner raised an indignant eyebrow. "And you think I have? Insolent young puppy, I'm not much older than you. Here, you better take your drink before I tip it over your head."

When George hesitated, Turner pulled a face.

"Don't tell me you've never had a cocktail before? My dear boy, haven't you heard? We're the Children of the Aftermath. It is our duty to make the most of today and hang the consequences tomorrow. Here, live a little, try it. They call it a Sidecar. It's one third Cointreau triple-sec, one third brandy and one third lemon juice, shaken with shaved ice and strained into the glass, all by my fair hands."

I removed it from his grasp before George could take a sip. "You're driving," I reminded him. "And it's not your car."

"As penetrating as all this talk about murderous uncles is," said Turner, arranging himself luxuriantly on the couch, "you know you still haven't told us the reason for your interest. Have doubts been raised about the old boy's guilt?"

"Why would you think that?" I asked.

"Why else would you be here? You aren't police, unless you consider being related to one gives you some sort of special privilege." He took a sip of his drink and sighed. "Better," said he. "I was on the verge of becoming sober. Therefore," he went on, "questions have been raised and you want to know what Millie's ma has to say about it. Am I right?"

"Darling, you are so clever!" cried Millie. "Is he right, George? Oh, do say he is."

"Of course I am," said Turner, shrugging the girl away. "I read it in the paper. I didn't make the connection until a moment ago. That means your grandfather must have been that Lestrade fellow."

"Who, Gerry?"

"Come off it, Millie. You know who I mean. He crops up in those stories about that detective chap—Sherlock something or other."

"Holmes," George supplied.

"Quite right." Turner suddenly started and snapped his fingers. "I've got it! Hang this Egyptian nonsense. We'll go as something truly original. Holmes and… oh, what was the name of that woman he had a thing for? Be a dear, George, and help me out."

"Alice Faulkner from the movies?"

"No, no, in the stories, dear boy. A woman, or was it _the_ woman?"

"Oh, you mean Irene Adler."

Turner beamed at him. "Well done, George. Cheeky he may be, but he knows his Sherlock Holmes, I'll give him that. There you are, Millie. I'll be Holmes and you can be Irene Adler. You can wear one of your mother's old dresses and I'll ferret out a dressing gown."

The girl was less than impressed. "But none of our crowd will know who we're supposed to be. No one reads that old-fashioned stuff these days."

"Very well then, darling. Be a boring old thing. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson it is."

"Oh, yes, that's so much better! Bags I the deerstalker and pipe!"

"Dash it all, Millie, but why do I always have to be the dullard of the pair?"

This prancing absurdity could only continue for so long. As they argued it out between them, George looked distraught that the object of his affection could be so flippant, even in her ignorance of my identity. Yet I had the distinct sense that a guilty part of him wished he could join them. There was a certain allure about their lifestyle of parties, cocktails and fast cars that would have appealed to any young man, and I doubted even if I had warned him that all that glitters is not gold, even if it did add a sparkle to the hair, whether he would have believed me.

I saw what Lestrade had meant about his looking for adventure and finding the wrong kind. So much for thinking he would be safe enough under my wing. In my care, he was being exposed to temptations of the worst sort. I dreaded to think how I was going to explain all this to his grandfather.

For the present, however, my hands were tied. If I made a scene and brought this farce to an end, George and I could well find ourselves turned out of the house without ever having spoken to Miss Weatherstone's mother about her brother's case. As wearisome as their behaviour was, I had to hold my tongue and trust that something positive might eventually come from this infernal torment.

What concerned me more was how Holmes would react. I could not see him, but I did not doubt that he had heard their remarks nor that he was at that moment dreaming up some diabolical chastisement for the pair. Quite what form that might take, I did not care to think. Fire and brimstone perhaps, depending on his mood.

I thought, therefore, that I was prepared for the worst, but even I had to admit to being taken aback by what happened next.

* * *

_**Oh, those**__** outrageous Bright Young People! Weren't they too, too naughty for words? Fire and brimstone might be a bit harsh (or not – they were rather rude). But what does Holmes have in store for them?**_

_**Continued in Chapter Sixteen!**_


	16. Chapter Sixteen

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Sixteen**

Of all the things I had envisaged, a soaking was not one of them.

It happened so fast that there was little I could have done to prevent it, for at the precise moment that Turner and Miss Weatherstone ran shrieking with laughter from the room in the hunt for a magnifying glass and cape, a sudden gust of wind rose up and caused the French windows to slam shut with force to rattle the glass panes.

Knowing the difficulties he had been having in mastering his emotional state, I considered this response to be surprisingly mild. Holmes had yet to tell me explicitly of the extent of his abilities, although from what I had read elsewhere, reports of manifestations and hauntings ranged anywhere from disembodied footsteps in the night to the wholesale throwing of objects about rooms and the levitation of unsuspecting bodies.

Instead, what I got was George starting from his seat with a wild wave of his arms and knocking my untouched glass from my hand. A copious mix of alcohol and lemon juice spilled over my trousers and down my leg, and, in the way of these things, a piece of ice found its way into my shoe and lodged against my heel to chill where it touched and dribbled cold water under the sole of my foot.

I admit this did not improve my mood and may have snapped at George for his carelessness. I berated myself after he scurried away in search of a cloth wearing the expression of whipped puppy; it had, after all, been an accident and was not entirely his fault. I was aware the perpetrator of the deed was not far away, for the temperature had dropped several degrees while I had been trying to mop up the excess liquid with the aid of a wholly inadequate handkerchief. The intensity of his sullen, brooding presence forced me to acknowledge him, and when I looked up, it was to find Holmes sitting in the chair opposite, a pinched look of annoyance on his face.

I sighed and braced myself for his usual disquisition on the shortcomings of the lower forms of literary entertainment and the folly of pandering to popular taste.

"Forgive the interruption," said he crisply. "But there are limits to my patience."

"Really, Holmes, you shouldn't take it to heart so," I replied.

"You speak of what you do not know, Watson. My circumstances may have altered, but my methods remain unchanged. I will _not_," he declared with sudden vehemence, banging the flat of his hand against the arm of the chair to emphasise his point, "be dictated to over the course of an investigation!"

He rose abruptly to his feet and began a restless wandering of the room. Evidently he had heard something in the proceedings I had not or we were talking at cross purposes.

"Because I am dead does not mean that I am willing to allow interference," he went on. "If Mycroft thinks—"

"Your brother?" I interjected.

Holmes gave me a distracted glance. "Yes, he was here a moment ago. I was speaking to him outside. Surely you felt the weight of his imperious presence?"

I shook my head.

"Death has not dimmed the high opinion he has of himself. Indeed, he is worse now than he ever was. Everything must be on his own terms. He had the bare-faced gall to tell me that I was in danger of meddling in matters that were beyond my concern. On the contrary, I have been most abstemious. You are the witness for my defence, Watson."

Holmes's definition of not meddling was not necessarily mine. I did not contradict him, however. He may well have been courting disaster if his brother had chosen to intervene, but that he had done so at this point suggested the line had yet to be crossed. The slamming of doors apparently did not qualify, nor scaring an impressionable young man half to death, to say nothing of the damage done to my trousers.

"Unpardonable of me, I know," said Holmes when I put this to him. "A man with limited resources should not waste his energies on tawdry fits of pique. Rest assured, it will not happen again. I am aware of my limitations, whatever Mycroft thinks."

"Has he gone?"

"For the time being. I have every confidence that he will return to plague me again once he has recovered from the exertion of having to leave his armchair on my behalf." He found a place beside me and rooted about in his pocket for his pipe. "They have a curious taste in tobacco in this household. Algerian, I should say, an expensive brand for a fellow whose shoes are in dire need of attention."

"Turner's, you mean? I had not noticed."

"Shoes, Watson, like hands and elbows may tell more about the state of a man's finances than any reference from his banker. Young Turner is a fellow who lives beyond his means, that much is certain; that he makes frequent calls upon the purse of his aunt by marriage is indicated by the manner in which he disports himself about this house. If it is any consolation, I'll wager that car you were admiring outside has yet to be paid for."

He sniffed at the air again. "But, dear me, the atmosphere in here is quite thick. I detect the odour of a cheaper blend of tobacco, coarse cut. Those would belong to George, no doubt extracted from him by the young lady. Well, since they have indulged their vices without your objection, I see no harm in satisfying my own." He put a match to his pipe and tossed the spent match over to the table. No sooner had it left his fingers than it melted away from sight. "Now, what should I not take to heart?"

I had hoped he had disregarded my remark, but Holmes was not about to let me escape so easily. I gave him what I hoped was a blank look and tried to feign ignorance. If he had not heard the comments made earlier, there was nothing to be gained in adding to his grievances by telling him. I should have known by now that my efforts would be wasted, for as Holmes was fond of telling me, dissembling was not a natural talent in which I excelled.

"You could not have been referring to my brother, since you were unaware of his presence. Therefore, I can only conclude that something was said in my absence that you imagined was liable to cause offence. What was it?"

"It was nothing," I said dismissively.

"Come now, Watson, evidently it was _something_. You have a guilty expression, my friend, which is eloquence enough. You may as well tell me."

"I would rather not. They are young and foolish, Holmes."

"You speak as though the two are natural bedfellows. When I was their age, I trying to make my way in the world, not gallivanting from one party to the next, indulging in frivolous behaviour. Nor were you, my friend. You were sailing for India and Afghanistan, with a Jezail bullet waiting to put an end to your adventures."

"I remember. Given the choice, I would rather have been young and foolish."

Holmes grunted. "How true. Very well, we shall let the matter lie. You may take some satisfaction from knowing that your suffering was not in vain. We did learn something of interest."

"Ah, you mean about the mother never mentioning her brother."

"Indeed. What do you make of that?"

"She believes him to be guilty."

"Which would explain why it has fallen to the daughter to take up Swinson's cause. I shall be interested to hear what Mrs Weatherstone has to say. Ah! Perhaps this is the lady now."

To my dismay, it was not Mrs Weatherstone, but her daughter, clad now in deerstalker and Ulster, a calabash pipe clamped between her teeth and a magnifying glass brandished aloft like a trophy. Behind her followed an unhappy Gerard Turner with a battered hat in his hand and a disreputable-looking overcoat.

"It's all right for you, Millie," said he. "But I'm the one who has to dress like a stuffed shirt. It's dashed unfair if you ask me."

"Darling, believe me, it will be too much fun for words," cried the girl. "Oh, I say, who shut that door?"

"The wind," I said vaguely.

The pair went outside to investigate this sudden change in the weather, seemingly unaware of the extraordinary drop in temperature inside the room. I was learning to read these changes as indicators of Holmes's mood, but on this occasion I needed no special insight to know that he was troubled by what he had seen. His expression and stiff set of his shoulders told me all I needed to know.

"So, this was what you were reluctant to tell me," he observed. "I remember now why I retired to the countryside."

"Are you very angry?"

He glanced uneasily at his pipe, dowsed it and stowed it out of his sight and mine in his pocket. "Why ever would you imagine that? I cannot say that I unduly troubled at seeing my name and reputation being reduced to a collection of props."

I did not miss the edge of sarcasm that had slipped into his voice.

"No," said he, raising his hand when I tried to offer words of consolation, "allow me for once to know the weight of the burden I have placed upon your shoulders during the course of our association. They say that no good deed ever goes unpunished, and by Jove, in this case, there has been a heavy price to pay. Given my time over, I should have cast that first manuscript of yours into the fire had I known that thiswould be the result. Better that the name of Sherlock Holmes had been forgotten than that I should live to hear the day when you and I were held up for public ridicule!"

There was a heartfelt sincerity about his words that moved me considerably. It was not that I agreed with him; I judged it less public ridicule than gentle parody. But I did begin to see just how little I had appreciated that his self-imposed exile had been a defence against a clamouring world that wanted more from him than he was prepared to give. The injunction he had put on my writings had been lifted when he had seen that denial of the beast caused it to howl ever louder at his door. By allowing me to feed it, he had thought to keep it tamed. In fact, between us, we had only inflamed its desire for more.

For the man who values his privacy, to suddenly learn that he belongs to the whole world can come as something of a shock. For good or ill, Holmes was having to face the reality of what that meant, whether it was George with his cigarette cards and fawning adoration for the fanciful life of the detective or the playful mockery of Turner and Miss Weatherstone with their pipes, capes and misconceptions.

For those of us who did not have the luxury of retreating to the secluded sanctuary of the South Downs, long exposure inures one to shocks such as these. Where I was neither surprised nor offended, Holmes was struggling to adjust. It fell to me, as ever, to soften the blow.

"To be fair, Holmes, you didn't live to hear it."

"There are some of my acquaintance who might consider such a remark vulgar," said he, the sudden brilliance of a smile passing across his features. "But you are right, my dear fellow. I have only myself to blame. Had I not insisted on returning, I could have remained in blithe ignorance. In removing my right to meddle, being dead has also relieved me of the trouble of having to care. You see, Watson, I am learning."

"I never doubted it."

"Yes, you did. You imagined I would be overtaken by a fit of petulant rage. Do not deny it."

"Well, I did wonder when that door slammed," I admitted.

"I could have shaken every door and window in this accursed residence had I wished, but what would it have achieved, except to cause me exhaustion? I cannot change the past any more than you can, my dear fellow, and I dare say worse charges have been levelled against me. _Die Tat ist alles, nichts der Ruhm_. One may always rely on Goethe whatever the situation." [1]

Turner and Miss Weatherstone chose that moment to return, denying me the chance of replying to Holmes's remark.

"Confound this wretched weather!" Turner was saying. "So much for any hopes of having a do in the garden later."

"But the day's as calm as anything, you silly ass," said the girl. "I say, wouldn't it be dandy if it wasn't the wind at all but the ghost of one of my wicked uncle's victims trying to tell us something?" She laughed merrily. "I bet he murdered them here in this house. Wouldn't that be too much fun for words!"

Foolish, I thought with hindsight, was perhaps too kind a word for them. Quite where their conversation was leading was too outrageous for me to contemplate or willingly tolerate. I had made up my mind to say something when the door through which we had entered opened and admitted another player into our drama.

She was older, in her late thirties, with a stern, but careworn expression and prematurely greying hair that gave her age she had yet to attain. As slim as a wand and with that pale colour that comes from too much time spent indoors, against the white of the room she seemed almost bloodless, an apparition frailer, if it was possible, than my spectral companion. This apparent fragility was an illusion, however, for her very presence exuded authority and the mood of the room changed abruptly. For the two young people, she adopted an accustomed expression of wearisome disapproval, and it was only when her eye turned to me that I saw any flicker of surprise at the presence of a stranger in her house.

"Millicent, I heard a noise," said Mrs Weatherstone. "I wondered—oh, you have a visitor. Do excuse me."

"_Two_ visitors," said her daughter as George appeared in the open doorway beside her, a linen tea-towel draped over his arm. "They aren't here for us, Mums. They want to see you about your wicked brother."

She gave the girl a sharp look and then turned to me. "You wish to speak to me about Matthew? I have already been interviewed by police, sir. Your interest is unclear to me."

I never had a chance to explain against the garrulous and indelicate Miss Weatherstone. "Oh, they aren't police, Mums. Quite the opposite. This young fellow," said she, slipping her hand through George's arm and bringing warmth to his cheeks in the process, "said his grandfather arrested my wicked uncle for murder."

Mrs Weatherstone's expression took on the light of realisation. "I had expected you before now," she said with some small trace of annoyance. "I am not accustomed to waiting for anyone. Well, now you are here, please, come with me. We can talk in the study." Her final remarks were reserved for her daughter. "Cocktails before lunch, Millicent?"

"I haven't had breakfast yet," said the girl, giggling in that high-pitched, now slightly drunken manner of hers, "so strictly speaking, it's still after supper."

"I despair of the younger generation," Mrs Weatherstone confided when we were safely within the study and the door closed on the loud pair, "and my daughter most of all. There is no reasoning with her. She does not see how inappropriate are these excesses of hers when all one reads in the papers are of unemployment and hunger marches. I fear she lacks discretion, like her father before her."

Her gaze had drifted for a moment to a collection of framed medals behind glass, along beside which sat a death plaque on a stand.

"Your husband died in the War?" I asked.

"He was killed at Ypres. A stray shell, they said. I told him not to join the army, but he would have it. He always was an inconsiderate man; Millicent takes after him in that respect. As it was, his death caused me considerable inconvenience. I was left with a small child and the estate to run. I did my best under the circumstances." She paused and drew breath. "And now my aunt's murder is to be dragged into public view once again. Well, I have weathered worse storms. It is a comfort to know that I have Mr Holmes fighting my cause."

She must have seen my expression of consternation, for a cloud of certainty passed over her face. "Am I mistaken?" said she, addressing George. "Millicent did say he was your grandfather. He has sent you, I take it?"

"Chief Inspector Lestrade is my grandfather, Mrs Weatherstone," said George.

"I see." Her voice could not conceal her disappointment. "When I wrote to him, I doubted if he would remember the case. He had handled so many, after all."

"You wrote to him?" I asked. "When?"

"Last year, when I was informed of his daughter's attempts to clear Matthew's name. I did not have an address, so I sent it to his old address in Baker Street. I was sure it would reach him eventually. That is why you are here, isn't it? You are Dr Watson. I am not mistaken in that."

Since she had discerned that much for herself, there was little use in denying it. "Yes, Mrs Weatherstone, I am Dr Watson. However, Mr Holmes did not send me."

If I paused at that point, it was less to prepare the lady for the news to come and more because I had seen the amused gleam in Holmes's eyes.

"I am sorry to have to tell you that Mr Holmes passed on nearly a year ago. He never received your letter."

"That would explain why he never bothered to reply," said she. "Who then is left to vouch for the findings of the original investigation? I was but a child at the time, and the detectives who came to question me said that this boy's grandfather is retired from the force and near senile."

"My grandfather is nothing of the sort," George protested.

I laid my hand upon his arm to calm him. "Mr Lestrade does remember the case, and at his instigation, I am making my own enquiries."

"You?" Her brows rose. "Forgive me, Doctor, I understood you were a mere biographer."

"I am familiar with the methods of detection, Mrs Weatherstone. Perhaps, however, you could enlighten us as to one point. The reopening of the case came about because of new evidence your niece—"

"I would prefer you did not refer to her as a relation of mine, Dr Watson."

"Very well, evidence that Mrs Currie has presented. Do you know what it is?"

She regarded me levelly. "If you do not know that much, sir, then I shall not harbour false hopes for the success of your investigation."

"We are working outside official channels, Mrs Weatherstone," George spoke up in our defence. He gave me a small smile, as if seeking approval for his efforts. I nodded, giving him the encouragement he needed. "You must understand that we cannot ask Scotland Yard without alerting them to our interest."

"I see," said she. "In that case, Mrs Currie has a letter purporting to be from my brother, in which he claims to be innocent."

"You do not believe him," I said, noting how casually she had dismissed the claim.

Her eyes took on a cold, hard light. "Matthew poisoned my aunt and then strangled my governess. There was no question in the case. He confessed. That he would write from prison professing to be innocent is to be expected. It is not something I took seriously."

Something about the way she said it, allied with her use of tense, alerted me to another possibility. "Am I to understand, Mrs Weatherstone, that you received a letter also?"

"Excellent, Watson," I heard Holmes murmur.

She made an expression of distaste. "Yes, Doctor, I did. It was given to me when I turned eighteen. By then my brother had been dead eight years and what he had to say meant little to me."

"What did he say?"

"He expressed his regret for what he had done, and made a half-hearted attempted at an apology. As I recall, he said I was 'too young to understand'."

"Did you keep the letter?"

"No, I destroyed it," she said with decision. "The deranged ramblings of a murderer have no place in my house."

"That is a pity," I said. "It may have proved useful in disputing Mrs Currie's claims."

"Remiss of me, but then I did not anticipate nineteen years later that I would have need of it." Her tone was arch, as was her expression. "However, I have other means at my disposal. I had hoped not to have to resort to such methods, but since the police are determined to make an issue of my brother's case, I fear I have no alternative but to act before our family name is dragged through the papers once again."

"Other means, Mrs Weatherstone?"

"Letters, Dr Watson, from Mrs Currie to myself, threatening that unless I gave her financial assistance she would press for her father's share of my aunt's estate. What, you thought her motives entirely honourable? You were mistaken. Well, I shall now be informing the police. This is nothing short of blackmail. I would not be at all surprised if that letter of hers is found to be forgery."

"Why have you not told them about this before?"

"I foolishly believed that the police would not be deceived by so obvious a deception. I trusted too that Mr Holmes might be able to settle this unpalatable business without recourse to official channels. Now you tell me he is dead, I must take matters in my own hands. Unless…" She glanced over at me, the corners of her mouth lifted by a faint smile, lacking in any real warmth or emotion that might have showed in her eyes. "Perhaps you, Doctor, could persuade her to drop these ridiculous claims for her own good. I should not like to think that I have been instrumental in separating a mother from her children. Prison is no place for a woman. However, that shall surely be her destination unless you can convince her otherwise."

"I could speak to her."

"Indeed you could." She consulted an address book and scribbled a few lines on a piece of paper. "She lives in Portsmouth, which is not too far out of your way. Convey to her my intentions, but stress also that should she retract her claims, I would not press charges nor would I be ungenerous. I might be prepared to make a small settlement on her family in light of her circumstances. The children should not starve, whatever the sins of their parents."

* * *

_**Continued in Chapter Seventeen!**_

* * *

[1] "The deed is all, the glory nothing." _Faust_, pt 2, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


	17. Chapter Seventeen

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Seventeen**

"I want nothing from Mrs Weatherstone. You can tell her that from me."

We were sat in a cramped kitchen in a terraced house in the Portsmouth district of Portsea by grudging invitation of the late Matthew Swinson's daughter, Mrs Margery Currie. Mustard yellow cupboards sagged on the walls, the doors hanging drunkenly from the hinges. In the sink, water lapped at off-white porcelain sides chipped and stained with rust from aged fittings. The table at which we sat, sturdy pine darkened with many years of use, creaked and rolled like a galleon on the high seas, slopping the weak tea from our cups into mismatched saucers.

It was a million miles removed from the comforts of Little Seaton. Yet this little home felt more warm and welcoming than the stately pile and its unattractive occupants we had left behind us. Life was evidently a struggle for the Currie family; I did not need Holmes's special insight to tell me that the tea had been through the strainer several times before our arrival. The washed curtains and polished front step spoke of pride, despite the poverty of the surroundings. Small touches like the vase of flowers on the kitchen windowsill gave it that intimacy and personality which had been lacking at our last destination. Whatever Mrs Currie may or may not have done, I already felt more sympathy towards her cause than to that of Mrs Weatherstone.

Mrs Currie was alike her aunt in build, and possessed that same sense of latent potential encased within a slight frame. I perceived this was less from choice than necessity; the skin clung to her thin fingers without an ounce of flesh to spare and her bones stood out sharply from the hollows of her cheeks. It was evident that she was accustomed to putting the needs of the two small children I could glimpse playing out in the cobbled backyard and the baby whose plaintive mewls could be heard in another part of the house before her own.

I could not help but compare her with her frivolous, silly cousin and reflect that it was a cruel turn of fate that could bestow one with so much and the other with so little. In terms of courage and spirit, however, Mrs Currie had undoubtedly been blessed. The determined set of her jaw as she stood her ground in the face of our questions was admirable; not once did I see her waver in her conviction that more was at stake than a mere matter of money.

"Yet, Mrs Currie," said I, "Mrs Weatherstone has told us that she is in possession of letters from yourself that could be view as an attempt at blackmail."

She shrugged this aside. "Times were hard then. Eddie had just lost his job when the brewery shut down, my eldest had measles and I had the little 'un on the way. I wouldn't have written otherwise. She's never wanted anything to do with us, but I was at my wit's end. I didn't know where else to turn." Her face flickered with emotion for a moment. "I never made a threat of any kind against her. I only mentioned my father's letter in passing."

"The police might not see it that way."

She returned my gaze boldly. "It does not change what my father wrote, Dr Watson."

I had been honest with her as to my identity and purpose in the hope that she would reciprocate. She had been hostile at first, given Holmes's role in the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of her father. The more we talked, however, the more she seemed to realise that our intentions were honourable.

"How came you by this letter, Mrs Currie?" I asked.

"My mother died a year back. She didn't have much to leave, bless her, save an old biscuit tin that she kept her bits and pieces in. She took it everywhere with her. Eddie used to say she had the crown jewels in it." She made a half-hearted attempt at laughter. "When I went through it, there was this letter from my father, dated a week before he died in the prison. She'd kept it all those years, along with his wedding ring."

She picked up our empty cups and deposited them in the sink. The agitated water slopped over the sides and onto the floor, wetting her shoes and apron, although she appeared not to notice.

"That was the only thing of value she had to her name," she said after a moment. "I had to sell it to buy bread for the babies."

"I'm sure your mother would have approved."

"I hope so. She loved those kids to bits. She used to do an extra shift at the corset factory just so we'd be able to put something in their stockings on Christmas morning."

She turned back, her composure restored, although her eyes in their redness betrayed her feelings.

"I don't have much left of my parents, Dr Watson," she declared. "All I've got it is that letter. If I can clear my father's name, at least my children wouldn't have grown up thinking that their grandfather was a cold-blooded murderer."

It was sobering, listening to the hardships endured by this wounded family. George for once had the good sense to say nothing and leave the questions to me. From the way he kept his gaze downturned, however, I gathered that he too was feeling uncomfortable at the turn of our conversation.

"Perhaps, Mrs Currie, you could show us the letter," I suggested.

"The police have it. I can tell you what it said though."

"Tell her to be precise as to details, Watson," spoke up Holmes, from where he had been standing by the back door, silent and thoughtful as he surveyed the small yard through the cracked glass pane. "That we know the exact wording is of utmost importance."

"Well, I should be able to that, Doctor," said she when I put this to her. "I've read it often enough this past year. It started by my father saying that he wasn't feeling right and how much he loved my mother and me, but he said that she wasn't to visit, lest I got caught what he had. He said that bad things were being said about him, but that he wanted my mother to know the truth in case anything happened to him. He wrote: 'I never meant to hurt our Nelly.'"

"Who was Nelly?"

"The governess," Holmes supplied.

"'She was going to tell the police what had happened. I grabbed her round the neck to stop her leaving and the next thing I knew she was dead.'"

"Mrs Currie," I said heavily, "that much confirms the findings of the original investigation. I fail to see how you imagine it can clear your father's name."

"He killed her, I see that. But he didn't mean it."

"That makes a difference?"

"It does to me and my family," said she resolutely.

I nodded. "Do go on."

"Even if he killed this woman by accident, he was adamant he hadn't murdered his aunt."

"He said that?" I asked. "In the letter, those were his actual words?"

"Yes, Doctor. He wrote: 'I didn't kill my aunt.'" She shook her head. "I've read that line over and over so many times that it's imprinted on my mind. That's what he said, Dr Watson, God's honest truth he did. Then he goes: 'Don't you see, Maggie' – that's my mother – 'I did what had to be done. I did what my aunt would have expected of me.'"

"A curious expression," Holmes murmured.

"What do you think he meant by that, Mrs Currie?"

She looked away. "Do either of you want another cup of tea?"

Holmes glanced at her sharply. "She knows, Watson."

"Mrs Currie," I pressed, "please if you know something…"

She put down the teapot and slid hesitantly into a chair. "I don't know nothing for certain," she began. "It's just something my mother used to say about my father not wanting her to meet his family on account of his aunt not being well. It was only later that she found out that it was because the aunt wouldn't have approved and would have cut him out of her will."

She took a moment to compose her thought whilst diligently covering the pot with a patterned tea cosy.

"I've done a lot of reading about the case," said she. "At first they thought the aunt had died of natural causes. A seizure brought on by her heart being weak. It was only after they dug her up and tested her after the other woman died that they found she had been poisoned. In which case, I had to wonder, Doctor…" She paused. "What if she was in pain and wanted to die? I have heard of it happening."

I considered. "Suicide, you mean? But why wouldn't your father have told the police?"

"To protect her good name and reputation. That's what he meant by 'doing what had to be done' and that it was what his aunt would have expected of him. He thought it was his duty."

"A duty that might have sent him to the gallows, Mrs Currie."

"My mother always said he wasn't right in the head. I don't suppose he ever gave a thought to the consequences, poor old Dad."

"It is a plausible explanation," I said, glancing at Holmes to see his reaction. He had his back to me again and was unresponsive. "This is what you told the police?"

She nodded. "I don't say that they believed me, but they said that they couldn't very well ignore it after the fuss I'd made. One of my neighbours had written a letter to _The Times_ for me and I had a journalist here down from London to hear my story."

"And you say that your only motive is to have your father's name cleared in the matter of his aunt's death. You do understand that if you succeed, you may be entitled to a share of her estate."

"I'll not deny the money would come in handy," she said, returning my gaze evenly. "Eddie has been out of work a year now and there's nothing for him down at the Labour Exchange. The breweries round here are closing down and none of them are taking on workers. He tried getting work at the docks, but there's too many of them down there looking to be taken on. We have to manage as best we can on the 40 shillings what he gets as dole on a Friday. It don't last long."

"I should imagine not." A long wail sounded from upstairs. "Is the baby ill?"

"He's hungry again." She rose with difficulty as though her joints pained her. "If you'll excuse me now, gentlemen, I should go and see to him."

George scrambled to his feet, dropping his coat and knocking over his chair in the process. I ushered him out, but did not follow immediately.

"Mrs Currie," I said, "I am not your doctor, but it is evident to me that you are neglecting yourself."

"I'll manage," said she, shrugging away my concern. "I've always been on the skinny side, so my Eddie says. Anyway, the little 'un needs his mother."

"To continue to do so in your current state will surely compromise your health. Would it not be better to feed the child with a bottle instead of feeding him yourself?"

"I would if I could afford the milk, Doctor. As it is, I have to water it down to make it go further." She hesitated. "You won't say nothing to the authorities, will you? I get an allowance for the baby's milk, but they'll take it away if they know I'm feeding him."

I had no intention of reporting her. There was a stout heart contained within that frail frame that demanded respect. I could only imagine the depth of her despair that had driven her to put pen to paper to write to an unfeeling relative and what it must have cost her in terms of pride. I understood too why she had retaliated as she had when her meagre request for assistance was refused. I might have done the same thing, had I seen my children crying with hunger.

One reads about the plight of the poor in these trying times, but the figures and statistics are meaningless without names or identity to put a human face to their sufferings. However straitened I imagined my own circumstances, it was nothing compared to Mrs Currie's situation. Where I hankered after a new car, she struggled to feed her family. I could not help but feel thoroughly ashamed of myself, an impulse that drove me to take a five pound note from my wallet and offer it to her.

Mrs Currie shook her head. "Put your money away, Dr Watson. I won't take what's not mine earned fairly and squarely. I've never accepted charity and I hope to God I never will."

"Please, Mrs Currie, for our children."

"They don't need it either. My Eddie and me see to their needs. What would he think if he came home and found me with five pounds and the neighbours telling tales about me having gentlemen visitors?"

"Tell him we were journalists from London." A little of the hostility faded from her eyes. I put the money on the table. "I'll leave it there. Do with it what you will. Consider it a doctor's prescription for a decent meal for yourself and your family. Better yet, consider it the Christmas present your mother would have given her grandchildren had she been here."

A rim of tears appeared in the woman's eyes. I collected my hat and coat and took my leave. As I opened the gate, I heard my name called and turned to find that she had come to the door. At either side of her skirts, two small faces appeared, peeping warily out. She smiled and nodded, and we both understood. In our silence, there was no loss of face on either side. A gift had been given and a gift accepted. That was an end of the matter.

Largesse, Holmes would have called it, and perhaps he was right. I had given enough to ease my conscience and to paper over the cracks until the next crisis came along. That come it would and in the shape of Mrs Weatherstone, as her act of final revenge on the brother she maintained was the murderer of her aunt, I did not doubt.

I closed the gate with a heavy heart, and could not help but wonder at the fate of this family if Mrs Weatherstone had her way. I knew what I should like to do to avert that particular tragedy; I only hoped Holmes would agree with me.

* * *

_**Dr Watson, what are you planning?**_

_**Continued in Chapter Eighteen!**_


	18. Chapter Eighteen

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Eighteen**

I found George waiting for me in the car.

The engine was already running and I had scarce time to close the door before he pulled away from the kerb, oblivious to the angry yells of the rag-and-bone man and his startled horse whose hooves we clipped with our wheels. He drove in silence, weaving in and out of the traffic with a lack of concentration that left a trail of irate drivers and noisy horns blaring in our wake.

Where we were going, I could not say, for I had not given him instruction and nor had he asked for any. There was purpose in his driving, however, and I did not question him; his dour demeanour discouraged any notion of my interference. Rarely have a seen a face so ashen that did not belong to the dead, and there was something about the way his fingers shook as he put a match to his cigarette that spoke of the depth of his disquiet that went beyond pity for Mrs Currie and her plight.

If youth has a resilience that its older, cynical neighbour has equal cause to lament and envy, it is also fragile. In my experience, where it is lacking may be due to an early awakening to the harsher of life's trials and the cruel death of that optimism which is the gift of innocence where every girl may dream of becoming a princess and every boy a gilded prince.

In that respect, George presented something of an enigma. As seemingly naive as a babe in arms, he cultivated a good impression of a young man without a care in the world or a thought in his head. On those occasions when his passions had been aroused it had either been in the presence of a pretty girl or a powerful motor car, common interests he shared with the majority of the young – and not so young – male population. That he was capable of deeper thought and deeper emotion he had proved, perhaps revealing more than he had wished, for he had then tried to retreat behind his talk of his pet subject.

It is a truism to say that still waters may run deep, but never more so was it apt as in George's case. My concern was that I had yet to discover his depths. For that reason, I did not force the subject or draw attention to the rawness of his nerves. I perceived that I did not need to do so. From the glances he cast in my direction, I sensed that whatever was troubling him would get the better of his natural reserve soon enough.

I was not long disappointed.

"Where next?" he asked at last.

We had travelled at speed through the old town and past the cathedral church of St Thomas, its west end extension shrouded in scaffolding, and now to my right, beyond the Royal Garrison Church and grassed banks were glimpses of the grey glinting sea. Out in the harbour a Dreadnought was ploughing its way out to open waters, scuttling fishing boats and putting the bobbing sea gulls to flight. Contemptuous of the interloper, they rose up in the air, pale ghosts with their wings outstretched, shrieking like the souls of drowned men, before seeking sanctuary inland, where they strutted like promenaders in their Sunday best, their keen eyes peeled for scraps.

So much I remembered, but Portsmouth had changed in the fifty years since my last visit on that day when the _Orontes_ had finally deposited me after a month at sea on home soil and I had been left to make my own way in a strange town. My memories were not entirely pleasant ones, and my remembrance of the place was hazy, like one of those old sepia photographs the children now find so amusing, where the gentlemen look prim and the ladies proper.

I did know, however, that our current route would see us skirt Southsea Common and head deeper into unknown territory unless George was prevented from going much further. I suggested he stop and give us time to take our bearings, at which point he swerved onto a road leading towards the seafront and found a place to park along the Esplanade.

He sat staring out to sea for a long time, watching the Isle of Wight ferry chug its way between one landing stage and another on the distant, rain-blurred coastline out in the choppy Solent, while I did my best to first locate a map and then locate our position. No sooner had I done this than George released a long and troubled sigh.

"It's isn't like I imagined," said he hollowly.

"Portsmouth, you mean?"

"No. Detective work."

"What did you imagine?"

He shrugged. "I thought it would be easy – a clear divide between right and wrong, the innocent and the guilty. Protect one and bring the other to justice."

"And now you've discovered that real life is more complicated than fiction."

He nodded glumly. "This isn't how it is at the movies. Nothing is straight-forward. Take Mrs Weatherstone, for instance. She's in the right, but she's vile, while Mrs Currie, well, what she did was wrong, but she doesn't deserve to go to prison. It doesn't seem right, Dr Watson."

"No, it doesn't," I agreed.

"What will become of her children?"

I regarded him kindly. "If you would take the advice of a man with more experience of these things, George, I must say that it doesn't do to become too involved."

"You did," he responded, somewhat accusingly. "You gave her money."

I was taken aback. "How did you know?"

"It's what I would have done, if I had any money, that is." He hung his head. "But I haven't. I'm no better than Mr Currie."

"You have prospects. That is the difference."

"No, I don't. No employer will take me on without references."

"But surely, your last position—"

"At the bank, you mean?" He looked at me, his expression frank and open. "Truth is, they asked me to leave. There was a question over some money that went missing. I know who it was – one of the other lads who thought I'd get promoted over him. I think even my manager knew the truth. The problem was that the notes were found in my desk. After that, they weren't looking for anyone else. They said I could either leave without references or they would call in the police."

As he turned his head back to the seaward view, I saw a nerve twitching in the side of his jaw. "I had to leave. The shame would have killed my grandfather if I'd been brought up on a charge."

Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined that George harboured such sorrows. "You still haven't told him?"

His untidy blond curls danced as he vehemently shook his head. "How can I? My father got the King's Medal. I can't even get a job cleaning windows."

Poor lad, I thought, raised to high expectations and afraid of causing disappointment. I understood now what had troubled him so during our interview with Mrs Currie. The despondency of her situation was one he knew and one that but for the home offered by his grandfather he might have shared. It was a frightening vision of what could have been and what one day could be. No wonder that he had been shaken.

"I'm sorry," he said, misreading my expression. "I should not have spoken as I did. You won't tell my grandfather, will you?"

"Of course not. But I think you should."

He regarded me askance, his eyes wide and alarmed like those of a startled fawn.

"There's not much your grandfather has seen or done in his lifetime," I said. "If he is angry, it won't be with you, George."

"He'll say I should have stood up for myself."

"In the circumstances, that might have been difficult. As Holmes once told me, circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing."

"But occasionally it can be very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk. Yes, I remember." His spirits lifted a little. "That is my one consolation, Dr Watson. Not even Mr Holmes could have proved my innocence."

"To say nothing of Rin Tin Tin? He might have been able to follow the scent back to the culprit." My poor attempt at humour did at least raise a grudging smile. "Tell your grandfather," I urged. "He always appreciated honesty. You may be surprised by what he has to say in return."

"Even after all this time?" His tone was doubtful. "If I'm honest, I've wanted to tell him what happened for a while now, but I haven't had the courage. I don't like having to lie to him. I've been telling him that I've been having interviews when really I've been going to the cinema or the library or walking in the park. I always got the impression he didn't believe me."

He sighed resignedly.

"But I suppose you're right. I can't keep it from him forever. At least I'll be able to tell him that we've solved the case and he was right – up to a point." This prospect, coupled with his unburdened conscience, produced a smile as bright as the sun breaking from behind the clouds. "Do you want a cup of tea before we go? I noticed a cafe back there by the pier and I wouldn't mind something to eat."

I declined, but encouraged George to get himself some refreshments before the long drive home. Tea would have been welcome, except that I knew Holmes wanted to talk and was eager for George to leave us. No sooner had he clambered from the driver's seat than Holmes's chill presence manifested itself beside me. The sudden drop in temperature caused a thin coating of condensation to form on the windscreen and I had to open my window to allow in the warmer air of the waning afternoon to clear the glass.

"What a mess," I said, rubbing my eyes.

"On the contrary, I should say that our interview with Mrs Currie proved invaluable in shedding light upon the case."

"No, I meant George. You were listening, I take it?"

Holmes nodded. "He was correct. He should have 'stood up for himself', as he quaintly put it."

"Come now, Holmes, what else could he have done? The money was left in his desk. He had no way of proving that he didn't put it there."

"What of fingerprints, my dear fellow?"

"That would have meant involving the police."

"Instead, by choosing to fall upon his sword, he has allowed the real culprit to remain undetected. No, it was not well done. I cannot admire his mistaken sensibilities in believing he was protecting his grandfather."

"Others have done as much before."

He cast me a sharp, penetrating look. "You are referring of course to Matthew Swinson. You believe what his daughter said about the aunt committing suicide?"

"It seemed a plausible explanation."

"My every instinct militates against such a theory. No," said Holmes, shaking his head, "it will not do, Watson."

"But the facts—"

"A letter written by a dying man to his wife is hardly proof."

"There I think you are wrong, Holmes. People near to death are often seized by the compulsion to make confession. I am inclined that what Swinson said about the death of the governess and his aunt is the truth."

"Oh, I agree."

"You do?"

"In so much as he admitted that the death of the governess was his doing. There we are left with another question. What is it she knew that Swinson was so keen to prevent her telling? Not that the aunt took her own life, I'll wager. She knew the identity of the murderer, Watson. I thought it at the time and I still hold by that theory. If I accept, however, that Swinson did not kill his aunt, then I am presented with a more sinister possibility."

"Then who was it? Apart from Swinson and the governess, who else was present in the house at the time of aunt's death? Unless..." I paused, disturbed by the direction of this line of argument. "You can't mean Mrs Weatherstone, surely? Why, she would have been a child at the time."

"And who better placed than the governess to know the nature of her charge? Yes, she knew, Watson."

"But, Holmes, a child…"

"You do not believe that children are capable of murder? Would you care for a list of such cases in the past fifty years?"

"I do not say it isn't possible. Improbable certainly."

"And so, having eliminated Swinson as the murderer, we are left with the improbable conclusion that his younger sister poisoned her aunt and yet it must be the truth. Fool that I am that I did not see it before!" said he vehemently. "Of course Swinson was protecting someone. There we have an explanation for that phrase of his: _I did what had to be done. I did what my aunt would have expected of me_. He spoke not of protecting her honour, but of his duty as an elder brother to his younger sister. That is what had been drilled into him since infancy. It is the common lot of older siblings. Goodness knows I have had the same problem with Mycroft for most of my life. That he continues to meddle even in death shows how deeply that belief is ingrained in him."

"So when Swinson wrote to his sister that saying she was 'too young to understand', he was referring to her poisoning of the aunt – too young to understand what she done."

Holmes nodded grimly. "Mrs Weatherstone erred in telling us that, a rare slip I should say in one who has hitherto contrived to commit 'the perfect crime'. You know, Watson, I have had dealings with many murderers in my time, but none I think who has succeeded in marrying cunning and ruthlessness with such efficiency at such a tender age. But for the court's judgement on Swinson's mental state, she would have succeeded in sending her brother to the gallows."

"It is a stretch to believe that a child could have planned such a thing. Have you considered that she may have poisoned her aunt by accident? Many a fatality has occurred before now by children eating yew berries in ignorance of the consequences."

"The evidence of the post mortem rules out that theory. Taxine was found in the aunt's body, but there was no trace of yew seeds as you might expect had she eaten them. The poison was administered without her knowledge by one who lacked the strength to achieve death by other methods. Poison, my dear fellow, a woman's weapon."

"But why, Holmes?"

"At the time I should have asked myself that essential question: _qui bono_? The obvious candidate was Swinson. Married to a woman of whom his aunt did not approve, an expected child to support and risk of being cut out of his aunt's will."

"A fair assumption."

"The wrong one, as we have discovered to our cost. Many an unhappy relative has reconciled themselves to an unsuitable match before now once it was a _fait accompli_. Yet it is not Swinson who has benefitted from the crime, but his sister. We see traces of that child still in the adult. Mrs Weatherstone is covetous and selfish. How else would you describe a woman who says her husband's death was 'inconvenient'? You observed that there was not a single photograph of the husband in the house, and yet his medals were given a prominent position. Clearly a woman who values honour as a concept but with little regard for personal cost. Honour, then, and the family name, which she is keen to protect from scandal. As keen as the last time when she saw that her aunt's estate might fall into the hands of her brother's despised wife and the offspring of that marriage?"

Holmes frowned, and his face set as if it had been carved out of old ivory.

"I dare say she hid her feelings well from Matthew Swinson. He was a simple, guileless fellow, devoted to his sister – and it was used against him by the very person he sought to protect. In his innocence, I suspect he told her that his wife was expecting a child. That is what provoked the murder of the aunt."

"But if as you say she did not want Swinson or his family to inherit, what did the death of the aunt achieve?"

"We are dealing with a child's mentality, Watson. An immediate reaction to a threat. Had the governess not died, the next death may have been that of Swinson's wife and their unborn child. Remember that her contact with his family would have been limited. After the aunt's death, however, she would have had daily access. We shall never know if her intention was to blame that death on her brother and clear the way to her uncontested inheritance once and for all."

"Good heavens," I said. "If what you say is true, Holmes, then Mrs Weatherstone has got away with murder."

"Yes," he agreed. "And we have as little chance now of establishing her guilt as of proving George's innocence. You may add to that list of my failures that thrice have I been bested by men, once by a woman – and once by a child."

"You weren't to know her nature."

He repressed a sigh and shook his head. "It was an elementary mistake worthy of the worst of amateurs. Had the child been present at the time of my investigation, I should have seen the truth. No doubt it was she who told Swinson to change the hand on which he wore his ring after the governess's death; I thought at the time it showed uncharacteristic intelligence on his part. She manipulated him, Watson; her every action speaks of her skill in that respect. She tried the same tactic with me when she wrote asking for my assistance in the knowledge that I would support her case in defence of my professional reputation."

"All the same, she took a chance. You may have discovered the truth, as you have now."

"'May have'?" Holmes said, cocking an eyebrow. "Your failing faith in me knows no bounds."

"I only meant—"

"I know what you meant. I cannot blame you for your 'may'. I have been in error at every turn, first in my assertion that my own death was not due to natural causes and latterly in my unwavering belief that my solution of the Swinson case was not in doubt. I have been guilty of what Mycroft calls 'vanity'. No, let me finish, my dear fellow. I returned because I believed that no one else was capable of defending my findings except myself. What is that but vanity? Worst of all, I now find that I have fallen into that trap of believing myself infallible, when manifestly I am not."

He glanced over at me, awaiting my response. The best I could manage was a platitude.

"We all of us make mistakes, Holmes."

"That is scant consolation when one holds another man's fate in one's hands. On the whole, it seems to me that I cannot chafe at the liberties taken with my public record. If nothing else, I am learning humility."

"Well, you weren't entirely incorrect. Swinson did kill the governess. For that, he deserved his prison term. What concerns me more is the fate of his daughter."

"I do not see how we can prevent Mrs Weatherstone from having her way," said he heavily. "We have been out-manoeuvred, Watson. Did you not think Mrs Weatherstone's offer to her niece surprisingly generous given her previous antipathy to her existence? You note it came after you told her of my death. She wanted an end of the investigation; since I could no longer be relied upon, she saw that she must act herself. No doubt she was concerned that suspicion might fall upon her or that the verdict of her aunt's death would be revised to suicide. That would leave Swinson's daughter free to claim her inheritance from her father's share of the estate. Mrs Weatherstone could never allow. Thus, where the carrot has failed, the rod must suffice. Mrs Currie will be implicated in an attempt to extort money from Mrs Weatherstone and the authenticity of Swinson's letter will be called into question. The official investigation will founder on that point and Mrs Weatherstone will triumph yet again."

"Unless we intervene to stop her."

Holmes glanced in my direction. "What did you have in mind?"

"You know full well. Don't pretend you hadn't given it due consideration."

"I cannot deny that it had occurred to me," he replied, essaying a smile. "I know, however, that you have scruples where burglary is concerned."

"The cause is a worthy one. It seems to me the least we can do for Matthew Swinson is to save his daughter from a charge of attempted blackmail. If the police investigation comes to the same conclusion as you did and she gets her father's due, all the better."

"Then we are agreed. We burgle Mrs Weatherstone's house and steal the incriminating letters."

"I don't suppose your accompanying me qualifies as meddling?"

"Meddling by proxy, Watson. You will have to do the deed."

"Tonight? Mrs Weatherstone said she would be in London this evening and was awaiting the outcome of our interview with Mrs Currie on the morrow. It seems to me that we do not have a moment to lose."

Holmes nodded, passing a hand over his mouth as he yawned expansively. "Shall we say ten o'clock? That should give me time enough to restore my depleted energies. What will you tell George?"

"I shall send him home. I don't want him involved."

"Then have your story ready. Here he comes now."

He faded from sight to be replaced just as quickly by our young companion. George slid into the driver's seat, holding aloft an ice-cream cornet in either hand. Either his journey had been a long one or the brewing storm out to sea had caused a rise in temperature, for both were beginning to melt, coating his fingers and cuffs with creamy-white dribbles.

"Thought you might be hungry, Dr Watson," said he, passing one across to me.

I accepted as charitably as I could. Protecting myself with a handkerchief, I made a show of enjoying it before tipping it out of the window when George was not looking. A host of noisy seagulls descended to divide the prize between them.

"You know," said George, sucking the ice-cream from his fingers, "I've been thinking about Mrs Currie. There is a way we could help her. We could steal her letters back."

I felt a smile creeping across my face until I could not stop myself from laughing.

"I know it's wrong, sir," said he, misinterpreting my humour as derision, "but you and Mr Holmes have condoned it in the past. In that business with Milverton, you said it was morally justifiable. So is helping Mrs Currie."

"All right, George, you've convinced me. To tell you the truth, I was planning something of the sort myself."

He grinned. "I knew it! This must be just like the old days for you."

"No, it isn't," I said soberly in the face of his enthusiasm. "Burglary isn't something I undertake lightly. Because of that, I shall handle this on my own."

"Not if I go to the police you won't." He stuck out his ice-cream dappled chin. "I want to come with you. I want to help."

Ruefully, I remembered how annoyed Holmes had been when I had tried similar tactics in the past. I could have wished that George was less resolute in his willingness to break the law, for the last thing in the world I wanted was to embroil him in our plans. The risk of capture seemed small, but as I had once said to Holmes, anything might happen. Practically too, I could not deny that his assistance would be useful. I was not as sprightly as I once was and a more able companion might mean the difference between success and failure.

"Very well, George, so be it." I offered him my hand and he shook it, far too enthusiastically for my liking. "We shall do it tonight."

"Thank you, sir," said he with overweening pride. "I won't let you down."

* * *

_**Dr Watson, is that really a good idea?**_

_**We'll have to see what happens in Chapter Nineteen!**_


	19. Chapter Nineteen

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Nineteen**

By ten o'clock, the sea-brewed storm had settled inland, bringing with it an unending sheet of rain that fell straight and heavy, hammering down on the top of my umbrella like an army of tiny blacksmiths, all intent on rending apart the sagging fabric of the covering.

On a night like this, any sensible soul would be at home, with their feet up before the fire, a warming brandy in one hand and a good book in the other. That was where I should have been if I had had any sense; instead I was huddled in my great coat in the darkest corner of the garden of Little Seaton Manor with the ghost of Sherlock Holmes. To say that the situation carried a touch of the absurd would have been an understatement.

I dare say that people of my age should not be contemplating burglary; similarly, spending a evening up to one's knees in the midst of a clump of dripping ivy, with cold, wet mud oozing into one's boots and the all-too often feel of rain finding its way through inadequate layers of clothing is neither to be recommended. I had gone past cold; I was fast reaching that stage where it feels as though ice has penetrated deep within one's marrow, bringing with it the certainty that a reasonable temperature will never be achieved again.

Not that this troubled my taciturn companion in the slightest. Death had its compensations, Holmes told me, and seeing him now, untroubled by wind or weather, I was beginning to see what he meant. He appeared solid, but that was for my benefit. Rain passed through him unhindered, and the splashes of mud that dappled my trousers had not left a mark on his immaculate shoes.

He was smoking too, as if to remind me that I carried temptation in the form of George's cigarette case in my pocket, entrusted to my safe-keeping lest, as he said, he lost it 'crawling through the undergrowth' in his appointed mission to keep watch on the house. I had suggested that the cover of a tree trunk would do just as well. George, in his mistaken belief that 'a proper detective' would not settle for tawdry half-measures, had made an excuse about not having a good enough view from such a distance. I had not demurred; what he proposed had long since lost its attractions to me, but he was clearly relishing the prospect. I took his cigarette case and left him to learn the hard way.

There it was, however, a silver-plated lead weight dragging down my pocket. The longer he was gone, the greater the urge, bidding me remember the taste of strong tobacco and the warmth bestowed by a cigarette on a cold night. My frozen fingers closed around its dented sides and my resolve wavered. Just one, I told myself, to keep out the cold. After so long, what harm would it do?

Juggling an umbrella and a cigarette is not easily under the best conditions. Twice I struggled to light a match and twice saw the tiny flame snuffed out. Cursing the storm, I happened to glance at Holmes, who was looking at me with a severe expression on his face and his lips lightly pursed. I knew then that no sudden rise in wind that had thwarted my efforts, but a gust of supernatural origins.

"Do you mind?" I said, gesturing to the blackened match I held.

"I thought you had given up tobacco, Watson."

"So I had." Again I tried with a match, sheltering it from the elements. Again he blew it out, this time causing a thin layer of ice to form over the tip of the cigarette. "Really, this is intolerable," I objected. "Do you wish to me to succumb to hypothermia?"

He looked away. "I had not thought you infirm of purpose."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I understood that you had good reason for abstinence. However, if you wish to break this self-imposed fast of yours because of a moment's passing weakness, far be it for me to stop you."

"I only intend to have one."

He did not look convinced.

"Holmes, you are not my conscience. What's more, you have done your level best these past few days to torment me with that accursed pipe of yours. I was content never to touch another cigarette again until you reappeared."

He removed his pipe from his mouth and quenched the smouldering ash before stowing it away in his pocket. "That should cease to be problem for you after tonight. Once this night's work is done, I shall trouble you no more."

I had known it would come, of course. To hear him say that our brief reunion would soon be at an end made it seem all the more immediate. As cold as I felt, as absurd as the situation must seem to an outsider, I did not want this night to be over. I would have gladly stood in the rain night after night if it meant a few more hours of his company.

"Must you go so soon?"

The merest trace of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. "I cannot stay. I have already preyed upon your time and good will for longer than I had intended." He surveyed me with thoughtful, placid eyes. "We cannot call back yesterday, my friend, or bid time return. We have had our day. It is time to relinquish the stage to younger players. They already chafe and strut in the wings, impatient for our final bow. To prolong our encore would be trying on the patience of our audience, to say nothing of the stage director."

"Yes, I know." I returned his smile. "It was good to see you again, Holmes, and to accompany you on this case."

"I could not have come so far without you, my dear fellow."

"Even so, it has been like…"

"The old days? Yes, my friend, it has. We have been fortunate in that as few are. All my possessions for a moment of time, as said the old Queen. So much we have had – we cannot complain if that moment was too brief for our liking."

We stood together in companionable silence, as the rain continued to beat steadily down and the undergrowth echoed wetly to the sounds of dripping water. So much like the old days, and yet so much was different. Holmes was dead, I was feeling my years, and George was performing that role that many years past we would have done together. Unusual circumstances perhaps, but then Holmes had ever delighted in all that was unconventional. It was a fitting end to our story that we were not divided by miles and marriage as in our later lives, but together on one last case. Despite my current discomfort, I would not have missed this night for anything.

A series of noises that one might expect to herald the approach of a traction engine alerted us to the return of George. He emerged from the shadows grinning broadly, covered in last autumn's leaf litter and soaked from head to foot. Clearly the rain had not put a dampener on his enthusiasm.

"The maid just left with a young man, Dr Watson," said he. "They've gone to up the drive, to the local pub, I'd say. Shall we go?"

Holmes nodded, and I passed his affirmation on to our young friend.

"If you don't mind me asking," George said as we started towards the house, "how are we to gain access? I saw the maid going round checking the doors and windows before she went out." He glanced at my coat. "I notice you don't have any burglary tools on you. Do you want me to break a window?"

"That will not be necessary," said Holmes. "You'll find the study door open."

"Is it?" said George when I told him. "How you do know that?"

"People always leave their doors unlocked in the country," I replied with authority. Certainly there was an element of truth in what I said. I had my suspicions, however, that our good fortune was owed to my spectral companion.

The moon was rolling behind the clouds as we made our way from the cover of the trees. There was something vaguely decadent about bringing an umbrella along to a house-breaking, and it was with reluctance that I furled it and felt the rain start to dribble down the back of my neck. It was a short distance from the lawn across to the garden doors of the study and I lagged behind George as he sprinted ahead.

He already had his hand on the door handle by the time I arrived and, as Holmes promised, it turned with ease, making the softest of clicks that would have gone unheard even had the house been occupied. George would have hurried inside without a thought, and it was only at my insistence that he took a moment to remove his boots. I had followed Holmes's methods for too long to know that even the most careful of burglars leave some evidence of their presence. However justified our cause, there was nothing to be gained by being reckless.

"A good thing for us that door was open," George whispered as he hopped on one foot and struggled with his boot.

"Yes, remarkably fortunate," I said, glancing at Holmes.

"A trick I learned from Mr Hopgood," he explained. "The ability to open locked doors is a ghost's stock-in-trade. I am reliably informed that it produces a gratifying, albeit superficial effect on the credulous – if that is the extent of one's ambition." He paused and I saw some fleeting emotion tense his features. "I cannot pinpoint the cause, Watson, but there is something stirring tonight. It would unwise to outstay our welcome."

"Where should we look first?" George asked. "The safe?"

"Is there a safe?"

He nodded. "It's behind that old brown landscape on the wall over there."

"How on earth do you know that?"

"Strangely enough, he's right," said Holmes, going over to investigate. I watched as first his hand passed into the wall and then the rest of him until he had completely vanished.

"Wall safes are always hidden behind landscapes. I learnt that from 'The Saint'."

"It's not divine inspiration we need, George."

"No, Dr Watson. Haven't you heard of Simon Templar? They call him 'The Saint' because of his initials – S.T." George's teeth shone in the fading moonlight as he grinned. "He's a bit of a rogue, if truth be told. No safe is safe from him, if you get my meaning."

"It's a pity he isn't here to help us now," I said absently, awaiting Holmes's verdict.

As he reappeared, he shook his head. "They aren't in there. Try the desk."

I made an excuse about looking in the most obvious places first and told George to take the farther drawer while I investigated the one nearest me. Inside I found the usual clutter: an accounts book, a new bottle of ink, several bills from tradesmen, a bank passbook and a broken gold earring.

"Then where are they?" I said when George reported that he too had found nothing.

"They are here, Doctor."

I turned in time to see a woman in a blue evening dress stepping briskly over the threshold from the garden. In one hand she held a small bundle of letters tied with red ribbon, whilst in the other the moonlight glinted on the long barrel of a revolver. At her touch of the switch, the desk light came on and we found ourselves blinking in the sudden glare at the smirking and triumphant figure of Mrs Weatherstone.

"My, my, Dr Watson and your young friend, what a surprise," said she archly. "Such dedication. I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

I have had too many guns pointed in my general direction to be easily intimidated. George, however, was another matter. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the colour had drained from his face and his Adam's apple was working up and down in his throat as he tried to bring moisture back into his mouth. I was not expecting him to faint – there was too much of his grandfather in him for that – but I prayed that his nerves would not get the better of him and make him do something foolish. If Mrs Weatherstone was looking for an excuse to shoot us, I did not want George to give it to her.

"Well, sir," said she, "do you have nothing to say in your defence or should I simply shoot you for the common burglar you so obviously are?"

"Say _something_, Watson," Holmes hissed in my ear. "Keep her distracted."

As he detached himself from my side, the thought passed briefly through my mind that he was planning something that might constitute meddling. I had to trust that he knew what he was doing for I was left with the pressing problem of Mrs Weatherstone.

"Threatening us is pointless, madam," I said. "We met Mrs Currie earlier today. She told us of the contents of your brother's letter."

"Did she now? What is that to me?"

"Everything, I should say. You wanted the inquiry into your aunt's death brought to an end, because you feared that they might discover the truth, that _you_ poisoned her."

She held my gaze for a long moment, her eyes hard and appraising. "I suppose you can prove that. Slander is still a crime in this country."

"Your actions are proof enough of your guilt. You were in no danger, Mrs Weatherstone. Mrs Currie believes that your aunt killed herself. But you could not take that chance. That is why you wanted us to convince her to withdraw her claim. For all your bravado, you were afraid the trail would lead back to you."

She seemed to find this vaguely amusing, for she laughed softly.

"And so you came back here," said she. "Tell me, what did you expect to find? A signed confession?"

"No, we came for the letters."

"As I knew you would. Oh, that surprises you? And I thought it was Mr Sherlock Holmes who rated little the intelligence of women. Yes, I know of his cases. My half-wit of a brother used to read them to me whenever I was ill. I should thank you really, Dr Watson. I learned all I needed to know about crime from reading those stories of yours. After you left this afternoon, I wondered if you might come to consider Mrs Currie a worthy cause and be tempted to make some gallant act on her behalf. I was not mistaken, was I? By your own admission, you have done it before."

She brought up the gun so that it was level with my chest. "It was unwise of you to break into my home. I did credit it you with more intelligence, but you are, after all, only a writer, a crass regurgitator of other's deeds. One should not expect originality from such a source. You did not disappoint in that respect."

I would have settled for the most hackneyed of diversions at that point. We could not continue this debate indefinitely; I was running out of things to say and Mrs Weatherstone was becoming impatient to kill us and bring the matter to a conclusion. Holmes meanwhile was concentrating his energies on a curtain pole that was propped up in a corner, presumably with the idea of bringing it down across her arm. I gathered that this manoeuvre required greater effort than the opening of a door; he would have to do better than the mere wobble I could see at the moment if he was to disarm her.

"Killing us will achieve nothing," I said. "You will not stop the police inquiry."

"I do not have to," said she, smiling smoothly. "Those letters will cast doubt on the reliability of my brother's claims, as will your death. It will be shown that you were in league with that wretched woman and that I was forced to defend myself. The law will not condemn me under those circumstances. I have been waiting for you, it is true, but I shall tell the police that I came home early and surprised you in the act." She eased back the hammer with a smooth click. "Indeed, that is precisely what I intend to do."

If ever a plan of escape was needed, it was now. It came not from Holmes, however, but George. As her finger eased back on the trigger, he made a grab for a book from the desk and flung it at her. He missed by a yard and she turned on him, her eyes ablaze, lip curled back, the gun pointing straight at George's head.

I have a vague recollection of pushing him out of the way as the deafening crack of gunfire and smell of cordite pervaded the small room. I kept falling, taking George with me, feeling all the while as though someone had thrust a lance into my shoulder and left me impaled upon its point. As we sprawled on the floor in a confusion of limbs, there came the sound of a thud and a clatter as the gun dropped to the floor and Mrs Weatherstone cried out in anguish at the pain of her injured arm caused by the weight of the toppled pole.

George, trapped as he was half beneath me, made a valiant grab for the gun. Too late, Mrs Weatherstone kicked it from his grasp. Taking it up in her left hand, she again held us at bay.

"Clever," she hissed, "but not clever enough. I'm going to shoot you both—" She broke off abruptly and what sounded like a strangled cry issued from her lips as she stared at the mirror over the mantle. She turned, looked behind her, and then back again, her eyes wide with baffled disbelief. "Matthew?" she breathed. "No, it can't be. You're dead. Stay away from me. Stay away from me, do you hear!"

The glass exploded into a mass of tiny shards as she fired the remaining shots at the mirror. I managed to cover George's face in time to save him from the hail of jagged fragments that rained down upon us. By the time we looked up, Mrs Weatherstone was gone, fled the way she had come. Her footsteps echoed in the darkness of the night and the garden beyond and in the distance there came the sound of a car being started. The empty gun lay where she had dropped it, hastily discarded in her flight to evade whatever it was that had so scared her. She had spoken a name; if as I suspected it had been her brother she had seen, we owed the spirit of Matthew Swinson our lives.

With the lady gone, George extracted himself from beneath me and was staring in horror at his bloodied hands.

"It's not mine," he said, his voice shaking. "Dr Watson, you've been shot. You're bleeding."

I was not so dazed that I had realised that much for myself. George was in a worse state than I was, shaking and confused, not knowing whether to help me or fetch assistance. For the moment, I needed him. I managed to pull back my coat and waistcoat, and saw the spreading red stain against the white of my shirt.

"I need my handkerchief." George did not move. The sight of so much blood seemed to have him rooted to the spot. "George," I prompted, "it's all right. My handkerchief, in my coat pocket, get it for me."

My words galvanised him into action. He did what I asked, moving mechanically like a marionette, the body obeying while the brain tried to make sense of what had happened. I balled the material and pressed it against the wound, wincing at the pain of the pressure. When I opened my eyes, it was find George staring at me, his expression nearly as pained as mine.

"There's a telephone on the desk," I said. "Ring for medical assistance."

He jerked into action and jangled the cradle several times before replacing the receiver. "It's dead. The storm must have brought down the line."

"Then you'll have to go to the village to get a doctor."

"Should I stay?" he asked falteringly. "You're not going to…to die, are you, Dr Watson?"

"I'll be here when you get back," I said, giving him as reassuring a smile as I could muster. "Now, please, do as I ask. And be as quick as you can."

He ran out into the night, stumbling over his own feet in his haste. Rain wetted the mat and brought with it breezes heavily scented with the smell of wet grass, trampled by the feet of those who had come and gone. Too late, I reflected that I should have told George to give me the gun. Even empty, it could still present a formidable weapon should Mrs Weatherstone return and be reluctant to wait for nature to take its course.

For despite what I had told George, I knew he would not be back in time. Of the many blessings of my chosen profession, the gift of self-diagnosis was not one of them. That I was slowly bleeding to death was not difficult to ascertain. My extremities were colder than before and my throat was raw and dry. I had had presence of mind enough to treat the injury, but all sense seemed to be deserting me now. The medical term should have slipped off my tongue, yet the word evaded me. Not that it would affect the outcome. The progression of confusion, fatigue and weakness to unconsciousness and ultimately death from circulatory shock would not be altered by my failure to utter its proper name.

Knowing this, I had sent George away because I did not want to burden him with the memory of seeing me die. When he returned, there would be grief and despair that he had left me, but better that than the alternative. What he would never know was that I had not been alone.

As never before, it mattered that it was just the two of us, as in the old days. Strange to think that fifty years ago, a bullet had been the catalyst that had brought us together, and that another was at that moment working its evils to seal that partnership into eternity.

"I said that boy was a liability," said Holmes. He knelt at my side and gazed with concern at my injury. "Is the bullet still in there?"

"I believe I can feel it lodged against my scapula. It would have to be my good shoulder."

Holmes summoned a wintry smile. "Really, Watson, what were you thinking? Had you waited for me—"

"Then George might have fatally wounded. I gave Lestrade my word that no harm would come to him."

"I'm sure Lestrade did not expect you to take a bullet for him. But," said he with a sigh, "I cannot blame you for acting as you did. In your position, I should have done as much. As it was, it was all I could do to move that pole. It took more effort than I anticipated and was to very little avail. It was not my intervention that saved you."

"She saw something. What?"

Holmes looked back at me. A little of the ire had fled his eyes and a more sober aspect had taken its place.

"The ghost of Matthew Swinson. You did not see him? No, I thought not. His energies were not directed towards you, nor did he do so entirely for your benefit."

"Unlike you," I said, returning his smile. "A pity you did not consult him before embarking on this case."

"I had not thought it necessary. I never doubted my conclusions. To have returned to do so would have been profitless, for I would have been unable to travel back through the veil to share my findings with you." His gaze travelled back to my shoulder. "Keep up the pressure on it, Watson. It continues to bleed."

"I am trying, Holmes." The handkerchief was already sodden and blood was starting to leak from beneath it down my chest. "My arm is getting tired. Being shot does tend to do that, you know."

"That fact has not escaped me." His voice was muted. "There was a time, had you been so injured in my presence, that I would have moved heaven and earth to see you restored to health, to say nothing of what I should have done to the perpetrator of such a deed. Now I am forced into the role of helpless spectator. Forgive me, my friend, I cannot assist you."

"You don't have to explain, Holmes," I said, trying to fight against the rising wave of dizziness that was making concentration difficult. "You've already told me that you have strictures governing your conduct here."

"Do you believe I would give them a moment's consideration if I knew of a way to help you?" said he earnestly. "If I had but hands to hold that linen in place, I would, Watson, and devil take the consequences!"

"Yes, I believe you would. But I do not expect you to break the rules on my account."

"You would be entitled to do so. If I had not encouraged it, you would not have been here."

I shook my head, an act that required far more effort than usual. "Do not blame yourself, Holmes. I came willingly. No one forced me."

I was not sure that my last words came out as I intended. A black rim had formed around the edges of my vision and was gradually encroaching on light and colour. I could hear him, but at a distance, as though through water, as one might who is drowning and hears the cries of his fellow above. I was tempted to close my eyes, to rest for a moment, but my companion would have none of it. A cold blast of air on my face brought me temporarily back to my senses.

"You must stay awake," he reproved gently. "Now is not the time for slumber."

"When is?"

"When George has returned with help." Holmes rose abruptly. "Where is that foolish boy?"

"It doesn't matter. He won't make it back in time."

My mind was reeling, and I was starting to lose the ability to distinguish between thought and word. Had I said that, or had I imagined it? Did I entreat him to stay at my side and not to go in search of our young friend? I shall never know, but return he did and resumed his place beside me, close enough for his cold breath to fan my cheek and restore a little clarity to my mind.

"No, Watson, I won't leave. Nor must you."

"I have nowhere particular to go, except with you."

"That is not the talk of an old campaigner," said he sharply. There was something different about his voice, as though something was choking him, although I could make no sense of it in my distracted state. "Come now, we have faced worse dangers than this before. Remember famed Harry's cry: 'once more unto the breach, dear friends'. Let us not be found wanting at this late hour."

"When have you ever found me wanting?"

"Never. That does not give you an excuse to start now."

A feeble laugh escaped me. "Mary always said you'd lead me into trouble one day."

"She was an exceptional woman. No, Watson, sit up and stay alert. That's a good fellow."

With the greatest of effort, I forced my eyes open again. "Did you mean what you said at Baker Street, about the times being good when we were there together?"

It took him what felt to me like a long time to answer. As he struggled to frame his reply, his pale face was touched with some inward emotion that he was trying hard to conceal.

"Yes, I did. But you knew that, surely?"

My eyelids were drifting down again. I lacked the strength to fight any more. Holmes's voice was very distant now and muffled, as though a wall stood between us. My hand slipped from my shoulder and the sudden rush of chill air against my wound felt as though it had been blown from the snowy wastes of the North, cold enough to make the blood freeze in one's veins. By then, my eyes had closed and I knew no more.

* * *

_**Oh, Dr Watson. Has the worst happened? Is he? Isn't he?**_

_**Find out in the Conclusion of 'The Case of the Dead Detective'!**_


	20. Chapter Twenty

_**The Case of the Dead Detective**_

**Chapter Twenty**

Nearly three months later, I was back in my garden. Summer was in full bloom, the trees were wreathed in greenery, and the air was heavy with the scent of rose, honeysuckle and lavender. Butterflies and bees crowded the nectar-rich kaleidoscope of petalled heads, and a host of ants were busy excavating the cement of the path piece by tiny piece.

It was the sort of day one feels glad to be alive – and indeed I was.

No one could have been more surprised when I had come to my senses, not in some otherworldly realm, but in the tangible and antiseptic surroundings of Little Seaton's cottage hospital to find my tearful daughter at my bedside and a constable at the door, waiting to take my statement. My recovery had been expected and now I was awake, I was urged to consider myself extremely fortunate, as the attendant doctor was fond of telling me. If not for the speed and good sense of my young companion in fetching him that night, so he assured me, I would certainly have perished.

What the doctor could not explain was how an unconscious man had managed to staunch a bleeding wound. When they had found me – and George told me time and again he thought I was dead at that point – it was to discover that, despite evidence of my having bled copiously over the hearth rug, somehow my injured shoulder had found a means of sealing itself, slowing the rate of blood loss.

There was no logical explanation for it. The doctor fell back on that old favourite of our profession when presented with something strange and unusual by pronouncing that there was 'much we had still to learn about the human body'. The nurse was less vacillating; she declared it was nothing short of a miracle.

For my part, I allowed George his credit for my survival and did not question it. I did not believe in the miracle theory, in much the same way that I had not believed in ghosts. Until evidence presented itself to the contrary, I was sceptical on that count. If I allowed that it was impossible, then what remained, as wholly improbable as it sounded, was that I had had assistance from another, invisible quarter.

What Holmes could have done under the circumstances, lacking as he did the ability to touch me, I was at a loss to say. The easiest solution would have been to ask him, but I had not seen him since that rainy night when I thought my last hour had come and he had stayed and fretted and scolded me for having the temerity to get myself shot. It was not for want of looking for him – at every freshening breeze I expected his familiar figure to materialise. More than once I had thought I tasted strong tobacco on the air and had risen in hope, only to discover that it clung to the clothes of the doctor or a visitor.

After weeks of waiting, I had to accept that he was not coming back. He was gone, as he had said, for good this time, and as ever he was conspicuous by his absence. Most men are content to grieve their fellows once with their passing; few like Holmes aspire to repeat the exercise. He was gone, and that old wound was feeling raw again.

Not that my recent existence had been dull. Everyone had questions. Unwisely perhaps, George had been all too ready to tell the tale of how Mrs Weatherstone had murdered her aunt, let her brother take the blame and had been so fearful of the renewed interest in the case that she had tried to manipulate us into doing her dirty work of intimidating her wronged niece. She had tried to kill us too, he had declared, when we had confronted her with her crimes, for once showing rare discretion in omitting the part where we had broken into her home to steal the incriminating evidence against Mrs Currie.

By the time I was in a fit state to be interviewed, all that was left for me to do was to confirm George's story. The truth of that night would never be known because the other principal player in the drama, Mrs Weatherstone, was unable to verify our story. In her flight that night, she had driven headlong into a tree a mile from the house on a straight road, distracted, it was surmised, by the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. She had not been killed, but in the accident had suffered injuries to her head, from which was unlikely to recover. She had been committed to a sanatorium, where she spent her days talking to someone she always addressed as 'Matthew'.

It was agreed that nothing would be gained by making our claims public. The official version of events was that there had been an accident with a gun and Mrs Weatherstone had crashed her car in hurrying to fetch assistance. This story stood up to very little scrutiny, but was what the inspector sent from Scotland Yard described as 'a necessary evil'. Quite apart from the question of proof, as he told me, there were the reputations of the two men involved in the original investigation to be considered. It seemed that the name of Lestrade continued to carry weight at the Yard after all.

Matthew Swinson was destined never to have his pardon for the murder of his aunt. His restless spirit would have been appeased, however, by the settlement that Millicent Weatherstone was compelled to make upon his daughter, which would provide her with an income for life and an inheritance for her children. The last I heard, the family had moved to a better house with a garden in Southsea. Mrs Currie would never have to starve herself to feed her children again. I imagined that alone was worth more to the ghost of Matthew Swinson than the vindication of having his name cleared.

With the dust settled, I had little to do but to take my time in recovering. My injury was healing cleanly, although it still pained me from time to time and I was left with limited movement in my shoulder. This time at least I was spared the added complication of enteric fever; the worst that befell me during my period of convalescence was a bee sting. I did wonder at the time if it was by way of a final message from my absent friend – it was the sort of thing that would have appealed to his strange sense of humour.

I filled long summer days with reading and grandchildren, two occupations that on occasion happily coincided. Today being too hot to play, they had joined me in the shade of the horse chestnut and had implored me to read aloud to them. Their book of choice had not been the usual fare of talking animals and playful pixies, but a story from my own pen, _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, with which I thought I remembered well to recite from memory.

My memory proved faulty, however, and I fell to reading from the page. Whether it was the heat or my voice, I lost them to sleep as I started out towards Black Tor where had been sighted the young lad with the bundle. I continued, lest a pause awaken them, and read again of a reunion at the old stone hut, when Holmes had contrived to surprise me with his unexpected reappearance. I spoke the lines in our voices, added the remembered inflections and recalling my rawness over the deception played upon me.

"'_That was what I wished you to think'_," I read aloud in his voice.

I surveyed the next lines feeling a constriction rising in my throat. "_'Then you use me and yet you do not trust me. I think I have deserved better at your hands, Holmes.'_"

I removed my glasses and closed the book. Nothing has yet been invented that compares with the pain of self-recrimination. To think that I had accused him of such and much worse over the years made me wonder how we had ever managed to endure each other's company for so long. Then he had died and returned, and I had been indignant that nothing had changed, in my mistaken belief that still he kept things from me and wilfully misled me.

Now, with time to reflect, I regretted our quarrel all the more. I regretted not believing him when he had told me that he had been convinced he had been murdered. I had been too hasty in walking away from him that afternoon at Brighton when he had appealed for my help. Yet, when the tables had been turned, he had not deserted me. It made me wonder which of us possessed the more forgiving soul.

More than ever, I wished we had had a chance to say goodbye. If I gave it enough thought, I could even imagine what he would have said.

"Don't let me stop you, Watson," came the well-remembered voice. "Your narrative was nearing its climax."

And there he was, seated in the wicker garden chair, his eyes closed, his head tilted back to catch the warming rays of the sun and an expression of contentment on his face.

"Holmes!" I cried, quite forgetting myself.

On the bench, padded about with cushions, Alice stirred in her sleep, and then like her younger brother, Arthur, slept on.

Holmes put a finger to his lips. "Don't wake them," said he, "not after it took so long to get them off to sleep."

"I thought you were going back after the case was concluded," I said, moderating my tones.

"Yes, that was my intention," he mused. "How is the shoulder?"

"Sore. How long have you been there?"

"Five minutes, I should say, no more."

"Then how did you know I hadn't just started to read?"

Holmes tutted reprovingly. "No bookmark, Watson. Had this been a regular afternoon's occurrence, you would have marked your place, and I know that you have greater respect for your books than to turn down the corner of a page. Your voice is also a little hoarse. I trust you haven't been taxing yourself unduly."

"I am quite well."

"I should have said that you looked a little tired."

I waved this aside. "What are you doing here?"

"This is a most pleasant spot, Watson." Evidently he did not intend to give me an answer. Instead, he released a long sigh and lay back in the chair. "One forgets how exhausting it is doing nothing. You don't mind if I close my eyes for a while?"

I watched as he tipped his hat over his eyes and pretended to sleep.

"Have you been busy?" I asked.

"Not particularly," he murmured. "I was at the Albert Hall earlier for a rehearsal. The acoustics of that venue are as poor as they ever were. The massed sounds of the orchestra do not sit well on the ear within those walls."

I let a moment lapse before challenging him again. "I thought I might have seen you before now. It's been nearly three months."

"That long! I had not realised. Forgive me, my dear fellow, but you have not been well. I considered that my reappearance might have alarmed you unnecessarily and provoked that which we sought to avoid."

"I wouldn't have dropped down dead from shock, Holmes."

A smile formed on his lips, but he said nothing.

"Why now?" I prompted.

It took a long time to secure an answer. Finally, he sat up and obliged me by opening his eyes. "Because I am going away, Watson."

"You're returning…" I gestured vaguely heavenward. "From whence you came?"

"Eventually, yes."

"Then this is goodbye."

"Farewell, for now, perhaps." His face was watchful. "I don't believe I had a chance to express my gratitude for the efforts you expended on my behalf. Your managing to get yourself shot rather put a damper on the evening."

"Most inconsiderate of me," I said with a wry smile. "What happened?"

"Didn't George tell you?"

"Not much, no."

"You lived to fight another day. What more is there to say?"

Such vagueness would never do. "Holmes, I need to know. Does your going away have anything to do with what happened that night?"

He looked away, and I had my answer.

"You meddled, didn't you?"

"Did you expect me to sit idly by and let you die?" he retorted. "Had you the good manners to stay conscious for another quarter of an hour when help finally arrived, I would not have had to take matters into own hands."

I stared at him. "What on earth did you do? You said yourself you couldn't touch me."

"Indeed, it did present me with something of a challenge. One must use the resources one has at hand. You will have observed my ability to affect the latent temperature in my immediate vicinity. I was able to use that to my advantage. After you passed out, I froze your shoulder and continued to do so until help was forthcoming." He smiled enigmatically. "They do not speak of the cold breath of the dead for nothing."

"And now?"

His gaze wandered to the distant prospect of the flower border where the bees hummed amongst the lavender.

"Have you ever thought of having a hive, Watson?"

"Holmes."

He sighed and relented. "It was deemed that I was guilty of transgressing Rule Number One, having interfered 'in the mortal existence of all things that live and breathe and walk the face of the earth' in a manner most presumptuous." He gave a terse snort. "Try as one might one can never escape bureaucracy."

I did not reply immediately. I had my answer to something that had occupied my thoughts often over the past few months.

"You saved my life that night."

"Nothing is ever certain," said he distractedly. "Who knows what may have happened?"

"I would have died."

"Perhaps." He offered me a faint smile. "Well, we shall never now know. We may speculate any number of outcomes, and having considered them all, I would pronounce that I should not have acted any differently."

"At what cost?" I asked. "Where are you being sent? Not… down there."

He found this amusing and repaid my concern by laughing softly. "My dear fellow, you have a delightfully naïve view of the workings of the universe. Put simply, I cannot go back. The door has been closed against me." His expression faltered fractionally. "I find myself earthbound."

"For how long?"

"A month, a year, a decade, who knows? They are never exact about these things. The element of anticipation appears to be part of the punishment. I understand there is a Roman Legion in York still waiting to return after near fifteen hundred years of exile."

"You won't have to wait that long, surely?"

"If only I knew, I could make provision. It seems pointless to begin anything if I am to be whisked away tomorrow."

"But you said you were going away? Where?"

He distracted himself by straightening the creases in his trousers. "I thought I might travel. I am now limited only in terms of imagination and energy. I could do almost anything. I could seek out the farthermost reaches of the globe and discover lost worlds and secret peoples. I could scale the heights and peer down on the earth, or penetrate the icy heart of the frozen wastes of the north."

"It sounds most interesting."

"Does it?" The enthusiasm seemed to have died within him. "I dare say it will pass the time. I thought three years in the wilderness bad enough, but an eternity? It is either that or to resign myself to the horrors of a sedentary life. At the same time, I believe I begin to understand why so many ghosts cling to their old haunts, if you'll forgive the expression. There is something to be said for stability in a world besieged by an excess of choice. Hopgood tells me that some spirits would rather move with the fabric of their demolished homes than remain on a building site." His smile was forced. "I do not think I could be so devoted to bricks and mortar."

"You've been back to see Mr Hopgood?" I asked, curious that he had mentioned the old innkeeper's name.

"It seemed advisable to consult him, seeing how our circumstances were similar."

"As I recall, he frightened a man to death. You did no harm. I do not see the similarity at all."

"We both broke the rules. The law judges the transgression, not the individual. As much as I hate to admit it, Mycroft was correct. I have played judge and jury once too often."

"Well, it seems unfair to me. What else did he have to say?"

"That the first hundred years are the most difficult."

He was attempting to make light of the situation, but I knew better than to accept this forced levity at face value. For someone who had found foggy London evenings a trial, the prospect of a hundred years of tedium must have been daunting to say the least.

"Holmes, I'm sorry," I said sincerely. "If not for what you did that night…"

"You might never achieve your ambition of seeing your granddaughter take her degree," he finished for me. "Do not feel badly, Watson. I would have had it no other way. If one cannot help one's fellow man from time to time, what is the point of one's existence? All that remains is for me to decide what I am to do with my bountiful leisure time after I am tired of travel. My cottage is out of the question. A family with four small children under the age of five have taken up residence and the noise is enough to waken the dead. Hopgood invited me to stay at the Red Lion, but I do not think I could tolerate endless evenings with nothing to do but play whist. I could return to Baker Street, I suppose. That seems... _fitting_. I could rattle about in the attic and make a nuisance of myself."

"Or you could stay here."

It was the obvious solution. Holmes, however, did not seem taken with the idea.

"The offer is a kind one, but no. I did not burden you in life; it would be unconscionable to do so in death. Your place is with the living. You have dwelt long enough with the dead."

I understood his reasoning. All the same, the thought of leaving him to wander companionless across the globe was not something that sat well with me. Age and family responsibilities were barriers to my going with him; therefore, the logical course was to have him stay with me.

"You would not have to live in the main house, Holmes. There is a summerhouse in the garden that we never use. I could have it cleared and have your things installed. You would not be disturbed, except at your own invitation."

He gave a mirthless chuckle. "You make it sound as though you are taking on a lodger."

"No, I'm offering an old friend a place that he can call his own."

He did at least give it some consideration before he refused. "You have grandchildren, and at least one of them can see me."

"Alice need never know you were here. Besides, she has her own 'friend'."

"Ah, yes, the ghostly Maud. One spirit in residence is enough for anyone, Watson."

"More the merrier, I should say." I was making it difficult for him to refuse. "At least say you'll give it a try. If it doesn't work out, then travel."

"And what am I to do in your summerhouse?"

"You could make a start on sorting out your papers. I haven't had the time. Then there's the question of that textbook on the art of detection that you always spoke about."

"I've left it a little late for that."

"Are your appearances still limited to me? I could employ someone to help you."

"No, that stricture has been removed. However, I am eager to share the knowledge of my desultory circumstances with a third party."

"Well, then, you could dictate your notes to me."

Holmes smiled. "You seem determined that I take on the mantle of 'ghost writer', but again I must decline. When next you take up your pen, it should be in your own service, not mine. Have you ever given thought to writing your memoirs?"

"I had."

"Then do so. You have been maintaining those journals of yours with diligence for long enough; you must have a wealth of information on which to draw. Why else would one keep a diary if not as a testament to one's existence? Every man should be able to look back on his life and say: 'I have lived and here is the proof'. Your time would much better spent in that worthy enterprise than in further exalting my name."

With regret, I realised that my best efforts were falling on deaf ears. Rightly or wrongly, when set on a particular course, Sherlock Holmes was indomitable. I had never been able to fight against the strength of his will, but I had learned ways of circumnavigating it over the years and I had been keeping my most persuasive arguments in reserve.

"As you wish," I said, summoning up an expression of indifference. "I shall have to move your things into the attic in any case. Your papers take up a great deal of room in my study, to say nothing of your violin."

He gave me a sharp look of surprise. "You found it? Where was it?"

That I was able to produce such an effect on him after all these years was rather gratifying.

"It was sent to me by an apologetic Dr Arbuthnot. It seems our visit pricked his conscience and prompted him to remove it from its hiding place in the loft and conceal it in the garden shed. He then fell from the ladder attempting to close the loft hatch, as we deduced."

"That would explain my reaction when we entered his surgery," said Holmes. "I suppose he stole it from my house."

"Yes, when he was sent for to confirm your death. According to his story, he recognised it for what it was and took it to save it from falling into the wrong hands. I have heard, however, from certain medical quarters that he entertained notions of setting up practice again in London and saw your violin as a means to financing his ambition."

"The cunning fiend! I trust you have taken appropriate steps?"

"Strange you should mention that," I said with a knowing smile. "The General Medical Council received a complaint about Dr Arbuthnot and he has been struck off."

Holmes chuckled approvingly. "So much the better for his patients. I am indebted to you, Watson. I had come to the conclusion that my emotions were mastering me, but now I find that my instinct was not misplaced. Do you know there are some cultures that believe one invests a part of oneself in the act of acquiring possessions? If so, it was that missing part of me to which I responded. I shall have to learn to trust this new intuition of mine in the future."

"Are you happier now you are 'whole' once more?"

"I am gratified that it has been returned," said he unconcernedly, "because now I am at liberty to dispose of it. Don't look so dismayed, my dear fellow. What use is it to me? I shall never play it again. Sell it and put the proceeds to better use. A replacement for that draughty old car of yours, for example."

At this, I protested most vigorously.

Holmes regarded me with a thin smile of amusement. "Do you know why you will never be wealthy, Watson? You have a lamentable propensity for sentimentality that blinds you to more profitable possibilities. You could live very comfortably on what that violin would fetch at auction."

"I am comfortable enough without having to sacrifice something that holds fond memories for me."

"If it fell to pieces tomorrow, you would still have those memories."

"All the same, I should prefer to keep it. I was hoping that you might consider letting Alice borrow it. She has shown a talent in that direction."

Holmes shrugged. "I have no objections. If one is to learn, it should be on an instrument _par excellence_. It lifts the most amateur of players out of the realm of the ordinary." His gaze drifted back in my direction. "Am I to assume from this sudden interest that she has changed her mind about a medical career?"

"No, she is determined as ever. This was her mother's idea. She says Alice spends too much time thinking and needs other interests."

"And the boy?" he asked, nodding to young Arthur.

"Wants to be a writer. Would you believe that he has a fondness for mystery stories?"

"Unfortunately I do, having met George and discovered how insidious that interest may be. In my youth, one aspired to a career in law or the military. If one was less talented, there was always the prospect of a government post. It was Mycroft's natural calling." He smiled briefly. "Whatever possessed you to encourage the boy?"

"It was nothing to do with me. His mother took him to see Raymond Massey in _The Speckled Band_, and he came home with his head filled with so much nonsense." [1]

Holmes raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Our _Speckled Band_?"

"Yes. I'm told it was fairly faithful to the events. In other respects, perhaps less so. Arthur was fulsome in his praise of the facilities at your disposal in your office."

"Office? Do you mean our sitting room?"

"Fully equipped with a Dictaphone and several secretaries apparently."

"Good heavens," said he, a laugh of astonishment escaping him. "I thought I had made a concession to the modern age when we had the telephone installed. Secretaries, you say? Mrs Hudson would never have allowed that. A Dictaphone, on the other hand, would have been of greater benefit."

"George said much the same thing."

Immediately I realised I had said too much. Holmes's interest was piqued.

"You'll find out sooner or later," I said. "He's found himself employment. In fact, he's set himself up as a private detective, in Baker Street of all places."

Holmes's expression faded. Then, to my surprise, he roared with laughter. "Dear me," said he, wiping tears from his eyes, "I do feel for his clients. Baker Street, you say?"

"Yes, he's taken Camden House, so he can look across the road at 221B for inspiration."

"Foolish boy," said Holmes, although the faint glint in his eye and the upward twitch of his mouth told me that he was touched by George's gesture. "What does Lestrade say about this?"

"He wasn't pleased."

That was putting it mildly. When George had announced his intention, Lestrade had blamed me for putting foolish notions in his head, conveniently forgetting the fact that they had been there long before ever I appeared. George had been resolute, however, and it had taken honesty on both sides to mollify Lestrade's displeasure. That, and George's announcement that he intended to renounce his father's adopted surname of Lawson and return to the family name. For George it was a new start, leaving behind the unhappy association that the Lawson name had incurred at his last place of employment. For his grandfather, I knew it to be a matter of some private pride, whatever he might have said about never being able to hold his head up again at the Retired Police Inspectors' Annual Dinner now that his grandson was working for the opposition.

What was in the blood could not be denied, and crime, like art, was liable to take the strangest forms. If he had to go into the 'family business', as Lestrade called it, he confided to me that he would rather it was in this capacity than have him join the official force. His reasoning was that there was a limit to the amount of trouble he could get himself into following errant husbands and tracing missing persons. In my opinion, he was being a touch optimistic – George seemed to me the sort of young fellow who did not have to look far to find trouble, if he ever had to look at all.

"I can imagine," said Holmes, the way he said making me wonder if he was reading my thoughts. "Well, under his grandfather's tutelage, I dare say he should do well enough. Has he had any cases?"

"A lost dog."

"Did he find it?"

I shook my head.

"Not an auspicious start." A long silence ensued in which his thoughtful brow and distracted stare spoke eloquently of the decision he was trying to make. "All things being equal," said he at last, "I fully expect George to make a pretty hash of things, and I dare say he will turn to you for advice and unofficial assistance."

"And you want to be there when he does?"

"Naturally. The summer house will suit me quite well. That is, if your offer still stands? Capital. Well, I shall not call upon your time too much. I may come and go as the inclination takes me. You have but to call, however, and I shall return. I trust that if any little problem happens to come my way that I may rely upon your assistance as in the old days?"

"As in old days," I agreed, and indeed it was.

**The End**

_Or it is? Sounds like the set-up for a sequel to me!_

_Well, I hope everyone enjoyed it. My thanks to everyone who reviewed and sent PMs – very much appreciated! Until next time…_

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[1] The film, _The Speckled Band_, was the first British Holmes talkie and was released March 1931. To date, Massey has the distinction of being one of cinema's youngest adult Holmes, being aged only 35 at the time.

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_**Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson, et al are the creations are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Characters and incidents mentioned in this work are entirely fictitious. This work of fan fiction has not been created for profit nor authorised by any official body.**_


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